Skip to main content

Full text of "The journey of William of Rubruck to the eastern parts of the world, 1253-55"

See other formats 


This is a digital copy of a book that was preserved for generations on library shelves before it was carefully scanned by Google as part of a project 
to make the world's books discoverable online. 

It has survived long enough for the copyright to expire and the book to enter the public domain. A public domain book is one that was never subject 
to copyright or whose legal copyright term has expired. Whether a book is in the public domain may vary country to country. Public domain books 
are our gateways to the past, representing a wealth of history, culture and knowledge that's often difficult to discover. 

Marks, notations and other marginalia present in the original volume will appear in this file - a reminder of this book's long journey from the 
publisher to a library and finally to you. 

Usage guidelines 

Google is proud to partner with libraries to digitize public domain materials and make them widely accessible. Public domain books belong to the 
public and we are merely their custodians. Nevertheless, this work is expensive, so in order to keep providing this resource, we have taken steps to 
prevent abuse by commercial parties, including placing technical restrictions on automated querying. 

We also ask that you: 

+ Make non-commercial use of the files We designed Google Book Search for use by individuals, and we request that you use these files for 
personal, non-commercial purposes. 

+ Refrain from automated querying Do not send automated queries of any sort to Google's system: If you are conducting research on machine 
translation, optical character recognition or other areas where access to a large amount of text is helpful, please contact us. We encourage the 
use of public domain materials for these purposes and may be able to help. 

+ Maintain attribution The Google "watermark" you see on each file is essential for informing people about this project and helping them find 
additional materials through Google Book Search. Please do not remove it. 

+ Keep it legal Whatever your use, remember that you are responsible for ensuring that what you are doing is legal. Do not assume that just 
because we believe a book is in the public domain for users in the United States, that the work is also in the public domain for users in other 
countries. Whether a book is still in copyright varies from country to country, and we can't offer guidance on whether any specific use of 
any specific book is allowed. Please do not assume that a book's appearance in Google Book Search means it can be used in any manner 
anywhere in the world. Copyright infringement liability can be quite severe. 

About Google Book Search 

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and to make it universally accessible and useful. Google Book Search helps readers 
discover the world's books while helping authors and publishers reach new audiences. You can search through the full text of this book on the web 



at |http : //books . google . com/ 



K 



TV( 



iV 



M 



'^I^* K 



At. 







<i 




M 



I 



J 



> 






w 





H 



,\TVQ(. 




WORKS ISSUED BY 



XTbe IDahlu^t Society. 



THE JOURNEY 

OF 

WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK 

TO thp: 

EASTERN PARTS OF THE WORLD, 

1253-55- 



SECOND SERIES, 
No. IV. 



TH E JOURNEY 

OF 

WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK 

TO ' . 

THE EASTERN PARTS 

OF 

THE WORLD, 

1253-55. 

AS NARRATED BY HIMSELF, 
WITH TWO ACCOUNTS OF THE EARLIER JOURNEY OF 

JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE. 



Cranslateli front \%t Uattn, axiH tStiiXtti, tDttl^ an introlrnttors jftottre, 



WILLIAM WOODVILLE ROCKHILL, 

HONORARY CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE 
ROYAL GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY. 



LONDON: 

PRINTED FOR THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. 



a. 

.H2 



LONDON 
PRINTED AT THE BEDFORD PRESS 20 AND 21, BEDKORDBURY, W.C. 



COUNCIL 



THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY. 



Sir Clements Markham, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R,G.S,, President. 
The Right Hon. The Lord Stanley of Alderley, Vice-President. 
Rear-Admiral Sir William Wharton, K.C.B., Vice-President. 
C. Raymond Beazley, M.A. 
Colonel G. Earl Church. 
Sir Martin Conway. 
Albert Gray. 

F. H. H. GUILLEMARD, M.A., M.D. 

Edward Heawood, M.A. 

Dudley F. A. Hervey, C.M.G, 

Admiral Sir Anthony H. Hoskins, G.CB. 

J. Scott Keltie, LL.D. 

F. W. Lucas. 

A. P. Maudslay. 

Major M. Nathan, C.M.G., R.E. 

E. J. Payne, M.A. 

E. G. Ravenstein. 

Howard Saunders. 

H. W. Trinder. 

Charles Welch, F.S.A. 

William Foster, ^.K., Honorary Secretary, 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface . . . . . . ix 

Introductory Notice . . ' . . xiii 

ITINERAJIY OF FrIAR WILLIAM OFRUBRUCK . . xlv 

Bibliography ...... xlvii 

The Journey of Friar John of Pian de Carpine, as 
narrated by himself . . . .1 

The same Journey described by Friar Benedict the 

Pole . . . . . -33 

The Journey of Friar William of Rubruck . . 40 

Index . . . . . .283 



Map to Illustrate the Two Journeys . In pocket 



PREFACE. 




N publishing the narrative of Friar 
William of Rubruck, a work which 
should rank as high in the literature 
of travel as that of Marco Polo, his 
better-known successor in the field 
of Asiatic exploration, the Hakluyt 
Society, I think, not only renders 
a service to students, but performs an act of justice long 
due to a great, though much neglected, traveller, who 
for six hundred and fifty years has remained imperfectly 
known and appreciated. 

It must be a source of lasting regret to all members 
of the Society that our great geographer and lamented 
President, Sir Henry Yule, was not able to undertake 
the preparation of an edition of William of Rubruck's 
Itinerariunt^ as he had long contemplated doing ; but his 
high opinion of the narrative, expressed in several of his 
works, has already greatly contributed towards establishing 
the traveller's unquestionable right to pre-eminence among 
the earliest European explorers of Asia. It is sincerely 
hoped that the present volume will further aid in showing 
the equity of Friar William's claim to the highest 
recognition. 

It is an interesting fact that to England, and England 
alone, the great French traveller owes the chief contribu- 



X t^REFACE. 

tions to the establishment of his fame. From England 
came the first notice of his work in the Opus Majus of 
Roger Bacon ; by Richard Hakluyt the relation of his 
journey was first made known to the world ; to Samuel 
Purchas he owes the first publication of the complete text 
of his narrative. 1 trust that it will now be found that 
from an English Society he receives full recognition of his 
great and lasting worth. 

In the Introductory Notice no attempt has been made 
to give in detail the history of the early relations between 
Western Europe and the Mongol Empire ; this subject has 
been elaborately and lucidly treated by such high authori- 
ties as Abel R^musat, Baron d'Ohsson, Sir Henry Howorth, 
Cahun, and others. The object of the editor has simply 
been to give an idea of the knowledge possessed by Western 
Europe concerning the Mongols down to the time of Friar 
William's journey ; and to show the sources of information 
of which that traveller could, and very probably did, avail 
himself as a preparation for his journey. 

Among the most valuable sources of information to 
which Friar William had access, was the narrative by 
Benedict of Poland of his journey to the Court of Kuyuk 
Khan, in 1246, in company with John of Pian de Carpine. 
It is highly probable that Friar William met Friar John 
before leaving France in 1248, and received advice from 
him, and possibly communication of his report to the Pope, 
if it was written at that time. At all events, as the route 
followed by the latter was for much of the way through 
the same countries traversed by Friar William and as 
the two narratives complete and corroborate each other, 
it has been deemed advisable to give in full the relations 
of Friars John and Benedict. 

As to the first part of the Historia Mongalorum of Friar 
John, relating to the customs and history of the Mongols, 
I have introduced in foot-notes to the text all such 



^REFACE. XI 

portions of it as bear directly on the narrative of Friar 
William ; and similar use has been made of the account 
of the mission of Friar Ascelin in 1247, which has reached 
us in the extracts preserved by Vincent of Beauvais of the 
report made by Simon of St. Quentin, a member of the 
mission. 

I have largely availed myself of mediaeval Chinese 
works for elucidating or corroborating Friar William's 
statements, and have had frequent recourse to Oriental 
writers, Mohammedan or Armenian, for the same purpose. 
Greek and Latin authors and European travellers, ancient 
and modern, have been consulted with profit ; though, 
unfortunately, I have not had access to a number of works 
of the latter class which may contain valuable corrobora- 
tive evidence of the thorough reliability of our traveller. 

It would seem that the MS. of Lord Lumley, published 
by Hakluyt, divided Rubruck's narrative into a number of 
chapters, to each of which a title was given, presumably 
by the copyist : for the other MSS., from which the text 
of Michel and Wright, the one translated here, was pre- 
pared, do not give these head-lines. I have deemed it 
more convenient to divide the text arbitrarily into sections 
where the narrative permitted it, and have not given titles 
to any. 

Concerning the spelling of proper names, I have chosen 
in each case what appeared to me the best reading to be 
found in any of the MSS., and have retained it uniformly 
throughout the work. The punctuation in the MSS. is 
very faulty ; I have occasionally altered it, but only where 
to do so seemed absolutely necessary for a proper com- 
prehension of the narrative. 

The above are the only liberties that I have taken with 
the text of Rubruck : I trust they will be deemed justifi- 
able. 

It affords me much pleasure to express here my sincere 



Xll PREFACE. 

appreciation of the services rendered me by Mr. William 
Foster, Honorary Secretary of the Hakluyt Society, who 
has, by his kind suggestions, corrections, and general 
revision of my work while going through the Press, greatly 
added to its value. I have also to acknowledge with 
gratitude the assistance given me by many friends in 
elucidating the text of the Itinerarium. To Thomas 
Watters, formerly of H. B. M. Consular Service in China ; 
to H. Leon Feer, my first guide in Oriental studies, of the 
National Library in Paris ; to Father Alishan, of the 
Armenian Convent of St. Lazarus at Venice ; to F. 
Grenard, the Central Asian traveller and companion of 
the unfortunate Dutreuil de Rhins ; to Father F. Ehrld, 
the learned Prefect of the Vatican Library ; and last, but 
not least, to Panagiotes Calogeropoulos, the genial and 
scholarly librarian of the Greek Boule at Athens; I tender 
my heartfelt thanks. 



W. WOODVILLE ROCKHILL. 



Washington^ D. C. 
March i2th^ 19CX5. 




INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 




?N 1222 the Mongols, already masters 
of all northern Asia from the Chinese 
Sea to Lake Balkash, having de- 
stroyed the Khorazmian empire and 
ravaged Transcaucasia, broke through 
the Caucasus and spread ruin and 
terror over southern Russia, then 
known as the Kipchak, and the valley of the Volga as 
far north as the modern city of Kazan. But barely a 
rumour of this invasion reached western Europe, and con- 
temporary writers have left us but a few brief references 
to it and " the Tartars," as the Mongols and their allies 
were to be called for ages to come.^ It was really not till 



^ Albericus Trium Fontium, in his Chronicon^ and under date of 
1222 (p. 150), records that the people called Tartars by the Hungarians 
and the Comans, and their leader, King David, or Prester John, on 
learning of the fall of Damietta (in 1219), retreated as best they could 
to their own country, and the little that was known of them was soon 
forgotten. Under date of 1239 (p. 571), the same annalist describes 
the Tartars from information given him *'by one who had seen them" 
in the following terms : " They have a big head, short neck, very big 
chest, big arms, little legs, and their strength is wonderfully great. 
They have no religion, fear nothing, believe nothing, worship nothing 1 
but their king, who calls himself King of Kings and Lord of Lords. ' 
For further information he refers his readers to the narrative of John 
of Palatio (j/V) Carpini. On the' confusion existing between Chingis 
Khan and a Christian king, called David, see Yule {Cathay^ 175), who 
refers to a Relatio de Davide Rege Tariarorum Christiano in Eccard's 
Corpus Historic.^ ii. 



XIV INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

1238, when a second and greater Mongol expedition 
against Christendom had carried devastation over nearly 
half of eastern Europe, that the princes and rulers of 
western and southern Europe began to awaken to some 
slight comprehension of the immensity of the danger 
which threatened them ; and that a few of them realised 
that unless they could unite Christendom against the 
Mongols they, their crusades, petty wars, and interminable 
wrangling and fighting between Popes and Emperors 
would be for ever put an end to, swept away in the rapidly 
rising flood of Mongol conquest.^ 

Though a mission sent by the Ismaelians to the Kings of 
France and of England in 1238, asking for aid against the 
Tartars, may have imparted the first reliable information 
to western Europe about the Mongols,^ the following 
extract from Matthew Paris, under date of 1240, gives 
such a full description of this new people, embodying prac- 
tically all the earliest information possessed in western 
Europe, not excepting that brought by the Ismaelians, of 
them and their country down to the time of the journey of 
Friar John of Pian de Carpine to the Mongol court in 1246, 
that I will translate it in full. 

" That the joys of mortal men be not enduring, nor 
worldly happiness long lasting without lamentations, in 



1 Matthew Paris {Chronica Majora^ iii, 488) says that in 1238 the 
fear of the Mongols was so great in western Europe that people of 
Gothland and Friesland did not dare come to Yarmouth for the 
herring fishery, and that herrings were therefore so cheap that forty 
or fifty sold for a piece of silver, even at places far away from the 
coast (see also Cahun, Introduction^ 356). 

2 From France the Ismaelian envoy despatched one of his suite 
to plead for assistance with Henry III of England. When he had 
delivered his message, the Bishop of Winchester, who had taken the 
cross at that time and was present at the audience, exclaimed : " Let 
those dogs devour each other and be utterly wiped out, and then we 
shall see, founded on their ruins, the universal Catholic Church, and 
there shall truly be one shepherd and one flock" (Matth. Paris, iii, 

487). 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XV 

this same year (/>., 1240) a detestable nation of Satan, to 
wit, the countless army of the Tartars, broke loose from its 
mountain-environed home, and piercing the solid rocks (of 
the Caucasus), poured forth like devils from the Tartarus, so 
that they are rightly called Tartari or Tartarians. Swarming 
like locusts over the face of the earth, they have brought 
terrible devastation to the eastern parts (of Europe), laying 
it waste with fire and carnage. After having passed through 
the land of the Saracens, they have razed cities, cut down 
forests, overthrown fortresses, pulled up vines, destroyed 
gardens, killed townspeople and peasants. If perchance 
they have spared any suppliants, they have forced them, 
reduced to the lowest condition of slavery, to fight in the 
foremost ranks against their own neighbours. Those who 
have feigned to fight, or have hidden in the hope of escap- 
ing, have been followed up by the Tartars and butchered. 
If any have fought bravely (for them) and conquered, they 
have got no thanks for reward ; and so they have misused 
their captives as they have their mares. For they are in- 
human and beastly, rather monsters than men, thirsting for 
and drinking blood, tearing and devouring the flesh of dogs 
and men, dressed in ox-hides, armed with plates of iron, 
short and stout, thickset, strong, invincible, indefatigable, 
their backs unprotected,^ their breasts covered with armour ; 
drinking with delight the pure blood of their flocks, with 
big, strong horses, which eat branches and even trees, and 
which they have to mount by the help of three steps on 
account of the shortness of their thighs. They are without 
human laws, know no comforts, are more ferocious than lions 
or bears, have boats made of ox-hides, which ten or twelve 
of them own in common ; they are able to swim or to manage 
a boat, so that they can cross the largest and swiftest rivers 



* The Ismaelian envoy said they did this so that they could not flee 
( Matth. Paris, iii, 488). 



XVI INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

Without let or hindrance,^ drinking turbid or muddy water 
when blood fails them (as beverage). They have one- 
edged swords and daggers, are wonderful archers, spare 
neither age, nor sex, nor condition. They know no other 
language than their own, which no else knows ; for until now 
there has been no access to them, nor did they go forth (from 
their own country) ; so there could be no knowledge of 
their customs or persons through the common intercourse 
of men. They wander about with their flocks and their 
wives, who are taught to fight like men. And so they 
came with the swiftness of lightning to the confines of 
Christendom, ravaging and slaughtering, striking every 
one with terror and incomparable horror. It was for 
this that the Saracens sought to ally themselves with the 
Christians,^ hoping to be able to resist these monsters 
with their combined forces. It is believed that these 
Tartars, of cursed memory, are of the ten tribes^ who. 



1 Plan de Carpine (690) says : " When they come to a river, they 
cross it in the following way, even if it is a large one : the chiefs have 
a round, light skin, around the top of which they have loopholes very 
close together through which they pass a cord, and they stretch it so 
that it bellies out, and this they fill with clothes and other things, and 
then they bind it down very tightly. After that they put their saddles 
and other hard things on it, and the men likewise sit on it. Then 
they tie the boat thus made to the tail of a horse, and a man swims 
along ahead leading it ; or they sometimes have two oars, and with 

them they row across the water, thus crossing the river Some of 

the poorer people have a leather pouch, well sewn, each man having 
one ; and in this pouch or sack they put their clothing and all their 
things, and they tie the mouth of the bag tightly, and tie it to the tail 
of a horse, then they cross as stated above {i.e., swimming, holding 
on to the horse's head ?). 

Pci shih (bk. 94, 16) says the Kitan crossed rivers in the same way ; 
and the Chinese traveller, Wang Yen-tc, who went to Karakhodjo in 
A.D. 981, says the Ta-ta (or Tartars) used to cross the Yellow River 
on inflated sheepskins or rafts dragged by camels (Ma Tuan-lin, 
bk. 336, 12). In 1474 the Venetian Contarini was taken across the 
Don on a raft tied to a horse led by a Tartar {Travels^ 153). 

- Referring to the Ismaelian mission of 1238, previously mentioned. 
The Assassins had every reason to fear the Mongols ; a few years 
later, they were exterminated by Hulagu and his troops. 

•Roger Bacon {Opus Majus, i, 268) thought it probable that the 
Mongols who had broken through the Caspian gates were the soldiers 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XVll 

having forsaken the Mosaic law, followed after the golden 
calves, and whom Alexander the Macedonian endeavoured 
at first to shut up in the rugged mountains of the Caspians 
with bitumen-covered rocks.^ When he saw that the 
undertaking exceeded the power of man, he invoked the 
might of the God of Israel, and the tops of the mountains 
came together, and an inaccessible and impassable place 
was made. Josephus says of this place : "will God do as 
much for the believer as he has done for the unbeliever ?** 
So it seemed that God did not wish them to come out ; 
nevertheless, it is written in sacred history that they shall 
come out toward the end of the world, and shall make a 
great slaughter of men. There arises, however, a doubt 
whether the Tartars now coming from there be really they, 
for they do not use the Hebrew tongue, neither do they 
know the laws of Moses, nor have they laws, nor are they 
governed by them. To which it may be answered that, 
notwithstanding this, it is credible that they may belong 
to those who were shut up, and to whom reference has been 
made. ... It is stated, however, that the Tartars take 
their name from a certain river which flows from the 
mountains which they had at an earlier date penetrated, 
and which is called Tartar '? in like manner the river of 
Damascus is called Farfar."^ 

of Antichrist. The Armenian historians of the period were of the same 
opinion (Dulaurier, 198, 248). The Ismaelian envoy of 1238 thought 
they had started either from the Arctic shores, or from the Caspian 
mountains, or their vicinity (Matthew Paris, iii, 488). 

^ Conf. Roger Bacon, i, 364, and infra, p. xxxi. 

' The Ismaelian envoy said they took their name from the river 
Tar. Pian de Carpine (645) says a branch of the Mongols called 
Su-Mongal took their name from the river Tartar, which flowed 
through their country (conf. Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxix, 
422^, and infra, p. 1 14, note. Maundevile (127) speaks of " the river of 
Fassar (or Farfar), which flows by the cyties of Marryoche and 
Arteyse ;" and he adds, " bessyde the Cytie of Damas ys a Ryvere 
that Cometh from the Mounteyne of Lybane, that men hyt callen 



2 Matthew Paris, op, ciL^ iv, 76-78, 



xviii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

On April 9th, 1241, the battle of Lignitz was fought and 
lost by Henry, Duke of Silesia, and the Mongols swept 
over his dukedom and Moravia, at the same time as 
another of their armies under the great Batu entered 
Hungary. The last barrier against an invasion of central 
and western Europe was swept away, and the Pope, the 
Church, and the Princes of Europe attempted but feebly 
and too late to organise resistance. On March loth, 1241, 
Henry, Count of Lorraine, wrote to Henry, Duke of 
Brabant, imploring his immediate assistance.^ The latter 
sent a copy of this letter to the Bishop of Paris.^ The 
clergy of Germany ordered solemn fasts, and preached a 
crusade. 

But the most important letter written at this critical 
period was that of Frederic H to Henry HI of 
England.^ The Emperor, from his long and intimate 
relations with the Arabs, possessed more correct and 
wider knowledge concerning the Mongols and their wars 
than probably any man of his period. In this letter he 
refers with some detail to the first Mongol invasion in 



Albane." Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxi, 429^1) says : 
" Tartar! modo interrogative clamoroso loquuntur, gutture rabido 
et horribile. Cantantes mugiunt ut Thauri, vel ululant ut Lupi, 
voces inarticulates in cantando proferunt, et banc cantilenam 
Ala alali {La Allah il Allah! 1 suppose) communiter ac 
frequentissime canunt." The Armenian chronicles speak of the 
sharp, piercing voices of the Tartars (Dulaurier, 248). Long before 
this the Wei shu^ bk. 103, 15, had, in speaking of the origin of the 
Oguz Turks {Kao-ch^i) who descended from a wolf, noted that to this 
first father they owed their whining, drawling speech, and that their 
songs resembled the howling of wolves. 

^ See Matthew Paris, op.cit.^ iv, 109-111. 

2 See Raynaldus, AnnaleSy ii, 258. 

^ It is really an appeal to Christendom : " to Germany, ardent in 
battle ; to France, who nurses in her bosom an intrepid soldiery; to 
warlike Spain ; to England, powerful by its warriors and its ships ; to 
Crete, to Sicily, to savage Hibernia, to frozen Norway." In this letter 
the Emperor frankly admits that all suppositions as to the origin of the 
Tartaric or Tartarei^ are baseless, and that no one knows whence they 
had come. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XIX 

Europe, the subjugation of the Comans and of southern 
Russia. Then he passes to the second invasion, to the 
conquest of Hungary, the defeat of King Bela IV at Pesth, 
and to the still more overwhelming one of Lignitz. He 
tells King Henry of the devastation of Poland, of Bohemia, 
of the marches of Austria ; and dwells pathetically on the 
urgent need for unity of action of all Christian Princes for 
the common defence, made so difficult by the cruel attacks 
on him by the Pope. He finishes his letter by saying 
that he puts his trust in God, and hopes that by the com- 
bined efforts of Christendom the Tartars will be driven 
finally down into their Tartarus.^ 

So intense, however, was the feeling of a large part of 
Europe against the Emperor, that we are assured that this 
letter was not generally accepted as a disinterested call for 
the defence of Christian Europe, and that to serve his own 
ends against the Pope he had invented this "plague of 
Tartars.'"^ And so this letter was used by the Church only 
as further evidence of its great enemy*s wickedness, and no 
effort was made by any of the powers of western Europe 
to assist Frederic with men or money. The Pope's quarrels, 
Jerusalem and Constantinople, were their only cares. 

On the receipt of the news of the Mongol invasion of 
Hungary, Pope Gregory IX wrote to King Bela,^ as he had 
written the year before to sympathize with the Queen of 
Georgia, condoling with him, encouraging him to further 
resistance, and promising all those who should take the 



' Ad sua Tartara Tartari detrudentur. In a letter of Innocent IV 
to the Archbishop of Aquilaea, in 1243. we find this pun again. 
Joinville credits St. Louis with having also got it off somewhere about 
this time, and we have it practically in the quotation from Matthew 
Paris given above. I cannot decide to whom the credit of the 
discovery belongs, though I am inclined to think that it was Frederic ; 
but then, would Pope Innocent have plagiarized his arch-enemy ? 
(conf. R^musat, J//;«., 15). 

2 Matthew Paris, op. cit.^ iv, 119. 

3 Raynaldus, y4w«^/^j, ii, 246-248, 259. 

b2 



XX INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

cross against the Mongols the same indulgences as if they 
had gone to the Holy Land. He wrote in the same strain 
to Coloman, brother of Bela, and issued an encyclical 
ordering a crusade to be preached. 

The defeat of Bela at Pesth, and the loss of his kingdom to 
the Mongols swiftly followed, and filled the old Pope with 
alarm and distress. He wrote to Bela on July ist, condoling 
again with him, and promising him, if Frederic would but 
show his contrition by returning to the Church, and thus 
restore peace to Christendom, to bring all the forces of the 
Church to the help of Hungary.^ .^nd so, while the Emperor 
and the Pope worked to destroy each other, the Pope ful- 
minating against Frederic, and Frederic continuing to 
wage war against the Pope in Italy, the Mongol inva- 
sion was left to run its course. On August 2ist, 1241, 
Pope Gregory IX died, and in December of the same year 
the Mongol Emperor, Ogodai, followed him to the grave. 

Among the Mongols, the emperor was elected by the 
various members of Chingis Khan's family, and by the 
great generals and officers of state sitting as a parliament ; 
so the news of the death of Ogodai put an end to the 
invasion of Europe ; the presence of Batu, the General- 
issimo, and of all the military chiefs was needed at the 
great meeting {kuriltai), which would soon have to be 
held near Karakorum, in Mongolia, to choose his successor. 
Thus it was that, though the Mongols remained in Hungary 
till 1243, and even detached divisions of their army into 
Austria and Dalmatia, their* great westward movement 
was stopped, and weak and divided Europe was saved, 

y though it knew it not, but stood helplessly expecting the 
fatal blow ; for the Mongols' claim to universal dominion 
was now well known over Europe, and no one could 
entertain any doubt of their ability to enforce it. 



^^yxi?^^^^'T>. Annales^ ii, 261. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XXl 

In 1243 Innocent IV was elected Pope; and with his 
characteristic energy he lost no time in putting to use^ 
such spiritual means as he could command to encourage ; 
the organization of armed resistance against the supposed ; 
impending Mongol invasion. On July 22nd he wrote to' 
the Archbishop of Aquilaea to proclaim a crusade, exhort 
the Germans to take the cross to go to the help of the ; 
Hungarians " against the envoys of Satan, the ministers of ' 
the Tartarus," and promising the same indulgences as for \ 
a crusade to the Holy Land.^ — ^ 

But besides these measures the Pope promptly adopted 
others more in conformity with his holy calling, his 
well-known proselytizing zeal, and the deep interest he 
took in the extension of the labours of the powerful 
Mendicant Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis. He 
organized missions, not only among the various heretical 
sects of Europe and Asia, and the pagan tribes of north- 
east Europe, but also to the Mongols ; in the hope, as he 
says in a letter to " the King and the Tartar people," of 
" averting their onslaughts on Christendom through fear of ^ 
Divine wrath,'.' and to preach to them Christianity ; as well 
as with the ulterior purpose of finding out through the 
missionaries exactly the plans of the Mongols as regarded 
Europe. The Pope must have been encouraged to believe that 
his representations might have some effect on the Mongol 
Sovereign by the prevailing belief in the existence, some- 
where in the far East, of the Nestorian Christian realm of 
Prester John ; and probably by the more recent information 
given him by a Russian bishop named Peter, who had fled 
before the invaders to Lyons, that " the Mongols wor- 
shipped one God, and were not without some religious 
beliefs."^ 

1 Raynaldus, Annates^ ii, 295. 

*- Matth. Paris, op. cit,^ iv, 388 ; see also Remusat, op. cit., 25, and 
infra, p. 236, note i. The Bishop, by the way, adds still a little more 



/ 



XXll INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

The Pope organized two missions to the Mongols, and 
to the leaders of each of them he gave letters to be 
delivered, it is presumable, to the first important Chief 
they should meet, the one in Russia, the other in Armenia 
or the adjacent countries. He confided both these missions to 
Franciscans. The ambassador sent to the Mongols in Russia 
was Friar John of Pian de Carpine^ near Perugia, who was 
at that time provincial of his order at Cologne ; the other 
was Friar Lawrence of Portugal, of whose previous life we 
know nothing. These missions appear to have been 
organized by the personal initiative of the Pope, and the 
envoys were ready to leave Lyons before the first sitting 
of the General Council, for the letters to ,the Mongol 
Emperor given to them bear date the 9th March, 1245, 
and the Council, which was opened on the 26th June, only 
approved the Pope's action. 

The Council of Lyons had been convened more especially 
for the purpose of " finding a remedy for the Tartars and 
other spurners of the faith and persecutors of the people 
of Christ; "2 but so far as the Tartars were concerned, its 
action was characteristic of the times, and affords further 



confusion to the story of Prester John, by apparently confounding him 
with John the Baptist. He says that the Mongols " say they have 
saint John the Baptist for chief" {dicunt se habere sanctum Johannem 
Baptistavi pro duce). The earliest knowledge gained by Europe of 
Prester John dates from 1145 (Albericus, Chronicon^ 307). It is also 
recorded under the same date by Otto, Bishop of t'reisingen (D'Avezac, 
op. at., 547. Conf. supra, p. xiii, note i). 

1 The editors of the Analecta Franciscana (iii, 266) remark that it 
would be more correct to write his Latin names Piano Carpinis or de 
Carpine, Planum Carpinis or Planum Carpi being the Latin form of 
the Italian Pian di Carpina, the modern Pian la Magione or Magione, 
about fourteen miles from Perugia (see also Liverani, 12). We have 
become so accustomed to speak of Friar John as Pian de Carpine, 
and of Friar William of Rubruck as Rubruck, that I have retained 
these names ; though we might just as well speak of Thomas of Canter- 
bury as Canterbury, or Robert of Lincoln as Lincoln. Strangely 
enough Remusat {^Relations Politiqucs, 27, 34) makes out that Law- 
rence and John were sent together to Batu on the Volga ; and 
Vivien de St. Martin {Hist, de la G^og.^ 269) repeats this blunder. 

'-^ Matth. Paris, op. cit., iv, 411. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XXlU 

proof, if such were necessary, of the utter demoralization of 
Europe. It decided that, "whereas the Tartars are the most 
bitter enemies of the Christian name, and the Christians are 
still exposed to their attacks — for not having conquered 
them all yet, as they in their desire to extinguish the 
religion of Christ wish to do, they will surely come 
back, and the horrors seen in Poland, Russia, Hungary, 
and other countries will be renewed;" therefore it advised, 
besought, and entreated all Christian people to block every 
road or passage by which the enemy could pass, either by^Ji 
means of ditches, walls, buildings, or such other contrivances'^ 
as they might deem best, and to give immediate notice to 
the Pope of the appearance of the enemy, to the end that 
he might take additional measures for their protection. 
The Council further promised that the Church would itself 
contribute, and cause all Christian localities directly inter- 
ested in the matter to contribute, towards the expense 
these defences would occasion.^ 

Friar John of Pian de Carpine set out from Lyons on 
the i6th of April, I245 ; and after various incidents which 
will be found related in his narrative of his journey given on 
subsequent pages, delivered the letter of the Pope, not to 
any Mongol Prince in Russia, but to Kuyuk Khan himself 
in northern Mongolia, not far from the city of Kara- 
korum. On the 9th of June, 1247, Friar John and his 
companion, Friar Benedict of Poland, were back in Kiew 
in Russia ; and in the autumn of the same year they again 
reached Lyons, where they presented to the Pope the reply 
of Kuyuk to his letter, and related the incidents of their 
adventurous journey.^ 



* Raynaldus, op. cit.^ ii, 332. 

2 The text of Friar John's Hisioria Mongalorum^ and of his accou!it 
of his journey, together with the short narrative of his companion 
Friar Benedict, have been admirably edited and annotated by D'Avezac 
in 1839 ; this work has been of inestimable service to me. 



XXIV INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

As to the mission of Friar Lawrence of Portugal, we 
know practically nothing concerning it ; no mention is 
made of it in any work which has come down to us. From 
a statement in the Ecclesiastical Annals} that in 1247 the 
Pope sent this same Friar as his Legate to Asia Minor, we 
may infer that he may actually have started on the mission 
assigned him in 1245, and may have visited parts of 
western Asia, thus acquiring such knowledge of that region 
as justified the Pope's selection of him for this new office ; 
but the new mission which the Pope sent in the same year, 
1247, to the Mongol Commander-in-Chief, Baidju, in 
Armenia, tends to prove that Lawrence had not been able 
to deliver the letter entrusted to him in 1245.^ 

However this may be, in 1427 the Pope determined on 
sending another mission to the Mongols of Asia Minor, 
with a letter of similar tenour to those given in 1245 to 
Friar John and Friar Lawrence ; and he chose this time 
as leader a Dominican friar, Ascelin or Ansel m, this Order 
having already at the time established itself in western 
Asia. A short narrative of the journey has been preserved 
to us in Vincent of Beauvais's great encyclopaedia, entitled 
Speculum Majorum : he deriving his information from a 
report which was written by Friar Simon of St. Quentin, a 
member of the mission, but which has not reached us. It is 
not without interest, though it adds hardly anything to our 
general knowledge of the Mongols ; nor does it give any 
details whatever about the route followed by the mission. 
Friar Simon's narrative, like that of Friar John of Pian de 



^ Raynaldus, op. a/., ii, 378. 

'^ Additional proof of this is found in the statement made in 1247 by 
Friar Ascelin, the head of the mission of that year to Baidju, that the 
Pope did not know who the (ireat Khan was, nor had he ever heard 
of Baidju, nor Batu, nor anyone else among them. Remusat, op. a'/., 
27, states wrongly that Ascelin's mission was sent by the Pope in 
1245, at the same time as that of Pian de Carpine. Vivien de St. 
Martin, op. sup. a'/., 270, follows Rdmusat, and says that Friar John 
wrote the relation of Lawrence of Portugal's mission. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTlCE. XXV 

Carpine, consisted presumably of two parts — the journey 
proper, and notices on the ethnology and history of the 
Mongols and the nations contiguous to them ; for we find 
scattered about in Bks. XXIX and XXX of the Speculum 
Historiale, among much information on the Mongols taken 
verbatim from John of Pian de Carpine's work, other 
additional details, which can only have been derived from 
Friar Simon.i 

Friar Ascelin and his companions were made to suffer 
all the humiliations and discomforts his predecessors and 7 
successors on similar missions were subjected to by Mongol 
arrogance and natural boorishness. Lodgings far remote 
from the Court, poor and scanty food, insults, delays 
innumerable ; nothing was omitted to make the ambassa- 
dor feel how insignificant he was, and in what low estima- 
tion the Pope was held. The envoy's conduct did not 
improve matters, though we must admit that he was sorely 
provoked ; he showed himself unbending, and sadly lacking 
in suavity of manner, or in any desire to ingratiate himself 
with the Mongols. The result was what was to be 
expected — a rude reply to the Pope's missive and the 
utter failure of the mission. It was 1250 before Ascelin 
ventured back to the Pope and made his report. 

When John of Pian de Carpine reached Lyons in the 
latter part of 1247, a crusade against the Saracens was 
about to be undertaken, and King Louis IX of France, 
who had taken the cross on its first preaching in 1245, was 
on the point of leaving for Aigues-Mortes, there to take 
ship for Cyprus. But the Pope feared that the departure 
of the King would leave him exposed to the attacks of 
that arch-fiend, the Emperor Frederic ; and so, in the hope j 



1 I have embodied or referred to nearly all these additional details 
in subsequent notes to Rubruck's narrative. Vincent of Beauvais had 
no knowledge of Rubruck or his work. See Specuhtm Historialc, 
hk. xxxi, chs. XL to LI I, 453a-454k 



5cxvi INTRODUCtORY NOTlCE. 

of inducing the King to defer his departure till his personal 
safety was amply provided for, he sent, in the early part of 
1248, three months after his arrival, Friar John of Pian de 
Carpine and his companion Benedict the Pole, to Paris, 
to represent his urgent needs to the King and seek to 
delay his setting out for the Holy Land.^ 

There was then at the Court of King Louis, among the 
numerous members of the mendicant Orders of which he 
was so fond, a Franciscan called William, a native of the 
village of Rubruck in French Flanders. He was about to 
accompany the King on the crusade, and St. Louis was to 
entrust to him some four years later a secret mission 
to the Court of the Mongol Emperor, the report of which 
forms the subject of this volume. There is every reason 
for supposing that Friar William met at Paris the two 
returning travellers, and heard from their lips the story 
of their adventurous journey ; and he may possibly 
have conceived at that time the desire to visit those 
remote regions, preach the true faith, and bring back 
to the Church of Rome the Christians scattered through- 
out the Mongol empire, whose existence Friar John had 
revealed to him. During the next four years Friar 
William was destined to hear and see much, while with 
St. Louis, tending to strengthen in him the desire to visit 
the Mongols, and to supply him with valuable information 
for his guidance.- 



* Wadding, Annales^ iii, 125. Louis, when on his way in 1248 to 
Aigues-Mortcs, went to Lyons to see the ]*ope, and presumably to give 
him an answer to the message brought him by Friar John (WiHiam 
of Nangis, Ccsta, 357). 

'-^ The only source of information concerning P'riar William known 
to exist is his own narrative of his journey ; my statements are based 
entirely on it. He speaks several times of the Seine, of Paris, and of 
St. Denis. His prolonged residence in J^'iris may be inferred from 
his reference to the intimate friends {amicos specialcs) he had there, 
though he may have become intimate with them while in the Holy 
Land. If P>iar William did not meet John of Pian de Carpine 
and Benedict the Pole in Paris, he saw, probably as soon as it was 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xxvii 

On September 2ist, 1248, St. Louis landed on the island 
of Cyprus, and three months later there arrived at Nicosia 
an embassy from Ilchikadai, a Mongol General commanding 
the forces in Persia, bearing letters complimenting the King, 
"whose renown had already spread throughout western 
Asia," and who, it was believed by all, was to deliver it out 
of the hands of the Saracens, and offering Mongol assis- 
tance against Islam for the recovery of the Holy Places. 
The envoy was Sabeddin Morrifat David, or simply David,^ 
as he is called by Rubruck. He told the King much 
pleasing news : he said the name of the Pope was already / 
famous among the Tartars ; that the mother of the Great: 
Khan was a Christian ; and that on the day of the Epiphany, y. 

three years before, the Great Khan himself and the greatest ^j^^^J^ f 
princes of the Tartars had also become Christians, converted'^ 
by a Saracen bishop called Mallachias ; that Ilchikadai 
even before that had been baptized ; that the Great Khan 
of the Mongols was most favourable to the Christians ; and 
much more to the same effect. This was translated to the 
King by a Dominican monk. Friar Andrew of LongumeaiyJ 
(or Longumel), who, besides possessing a good knowledge 
of Arabic^ had been among the Mongols with Friar Ascelin's 



written, the short narrative of Benedict. In the only passage in which 
he refers to Friar John, he mentions a detail only found in Benedict's 
account of the journey (see infra^ p. 38). Antonio de Macro, in 
Wadding {Annaies^ iii, 207), states that on June 20th, 1248, Friar 
Benedict the Pole suffered martyrdom for the faith, with another 
member of his Order, called John of Piano (not to be confounded with 
John of Pian de Carpine), at Armaloch in Persia. If this be correct, 
Benedict may not even have had time to go to Paris, but, after 
making his report at Lyons, have left at once for Armenia. In this 
case, it is conceivable that a copy of this report was given William 
of Rubruck by John of Pian de Carpine. Shortly after, William of 
Rubruck went to the Holy Land, not to return for eight or ten years ; 
but at the time of writing his narrative, in 1255, he apparently did 
not know of the existence of the work of John of Pian de Carpine, 
-which must have been written not later than 1248, for the author does 
not appear to have long survived the hardships of his journey 
(D'Avezac, 599-601). 

1 William of Nangis, 360 ; D'Ohsson, ii, 237. 



Xxviii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

mission in 1247, and had there met this same David at the 
camp of Baidju, the Commander-in-Chief of the Mongol 
forces in western Asia.^ King Louis was destined to find 
out, a few years later, that Ilchikadai's mission had been 
undertaken without authority from the Mongol Emperor ; 
and that the information vouchsafed him by David was of 
that unsubstantial kind Orientals are but too apt to give 
when knowing it will afiford pleasure to their hearers.^ At 
the time, however, the King was so pleased with it and 
with the corroborative evidence in a letter from the Con- 
stable of Armenia to the King of Cyprus received at about 
the same time, speaking of the vast numbers of Christians 
he had found in the Mongol country, through which he 
was travelling on his mission to the Great Khan,^ that 
he at once determined to send, not only a return mission 
to Ilchikadai, but also one to the Emperor of the Mongols, 



1 William of Nangis (359), Jean Pierre Sarrasin (254), and all 
contemporary, writers who refer to the subject, state that Andrew had 
been on Friar Ascelin's mission. The chronicler of the mission, 
Simon of St. Quentin, only mentions Brothers Alexander, Alberic, 
Guischard of Cremona (who joined the party at Tiflis, to act as inter- 
preter probably), and himself. Sarrasin calls Andrew, Friar Andrieu 
de St. Jacques, and William of Nangis styles him Andreas, Andrus 
and Andrien. Joinville refers to him, but not by name. Some writers 
think that the Friar Ascelin of the mission of 1245 is the same as the 
Andrew of that of 1249. Rdmusat {pp. cit.^ 27) thinks Andrew joined 
Ascelin's mission during its journey to Mongol headquarters. 

2 Mangu Khan wrote to St. Louis (see infra^ p. 249) that David was 
an impostor, but I imagine that we are not to understand this 
too literally. Ilchikadai had attempted to establish direct relations 
with the French King without obtaining the sanction of the Emperor ; 
he was consequently, and quite properly, disavowed. D'Ohsson (ii, 
238) is of opinion that the envoys were impostors in every sense, and 
their letters pure forgeries. If this be so, 1 cannot see why David 
should have been willing to return with the French mission to the 
Mongol headquarters in Persia, and how it happened that his com- 
panion and accomplice, Marcus, was at Sartach's ordu in 1253, when 
William of Ruhruck passed through there, enjoying apparently some 
influence on account of his knowledge of languages (see infra, 
pp. 102, 105). Copies of the letters brought by David were sent to 
the Pope and to King Louis' mother, Queen Blanche (see Remusat, 
op. cit., 45, who has views identical with mine as to David's mission). 

^ William of Nangis, 360, 361. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE XXIX 

who the envoy told him was called Kuyuk Khan/ for 
the purpose of exhorting him and his princes to the per- 
formance of Christian duties, and expressing his pleasure 
at the happy disposition of the Mongols as regarded the 
faith of Christ. Friar Andrew was naturally chosen as 
ambassador, and accompanied by his brother, another 
monk whose name has not reached us, four laymen, one 
of whom would seem to have been an Englishman, and 
David, he set out for the Emperors camp about the 
middle of February, 1249,^ bearing letters from the King 
and Legate, and rich presents, among others a tent made 
like a chapel, the walls adorned with scenes representing the 
Annunciation and other events of sacred history, " pour 
eulz montrer et enseigner comment ils devoient croire." 
Kuyuk was dead when the mission arrived at the Mongol 
court on the Imil, and it was the regent, the Empress Ogul 
Gaimish, who received it, and who promptly put this most 
unexpected advance of the great Frank sovereign to a very 
practical use. " When the great King (Queen) of the Tar- 
tarins," says Joinville, " had received the messengers and the 
presents, he sent for several kings, whose security he 
insured, and who had not yet come to do him homage, and 
he had the chapel set up, and spoke to them as follows : 
* My lords, the King of France has come under my sub- 
jection, and here is the tribute he sends us ; and if you 
come not to our mercy, we will send for him to confound 



* Sarrasin {loc. cit.) writes the name (Into Quan. 

2 Sarrasin (255) says he was accompanied by "un siens fr6re et 
maistre Jehans Goderiche et uns autres clers de Poissy, et Herbers 
li sommeliers, et Gerbers de Sens." William of Nangis (367) says 
he had two other friars of his Order, two clerks, and two sergeants-at- 
arms {serjans cf amies). He adds that the envoy '^envoia assez (tost) 
lettres au roys Loys de ce que il avoit troiive ; lesquelles Jettres li roys 
envoya en France k sa tres-chiere mere la royne Blanche." Perhaps 
these letters may some day be found. Remusat {op, cit.y 52) mentions 
the names of three other persons who, according to various con- 
temporary writers, accompanied this mission : they are John of 
Carcassonne, Guillaume, and Robert, a clerk. 



XXX INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

you/ And many there were among them who, for fear of 
the King of France, placed themselves in subjection to that 
King.'i 

In the spring of 1249, St. Louis, Queen Margaret, Friar 

William of Rubruck,^ and all the army of Crusaders set 

sail for Egypt. The fatal battle of Mansurah, the captivity 

of the King, and the capitulation of Damietta followed 

shortly after; and in the spring or summer of 1250, the 

King, with the remnants of his army, was landed at 

Ptolemais, on the coast of Palestine, a much sadder though 

hardly a wiser man, as his further conduct showed. Near 

there, in 125 1, while. occupied in fortifying the town of 

Caesarea, he received Friar Andrew on his return from the 

Mongol court with the envoys of the Empress-Regent, Ogul 

Gaimish — that "most abominable sorceress, viler than a 

dog," as the Emperor Mangu described her a few years 

later in a letter to King Louis — bearing a letter from 

her to the French King. It was in the following terms (I 

will not spoil Joinville's quaint language by attempting to 

translate it) : " Bone chose est de pez ; quar en terre de pez 

manjuent cil qui vont a quatre piez, I'erbe pesiblement. 

Cil qui vont a deus labourent la terre dont les biens 

viennent passiblement.^ Et cete chose te mandons, nous 

pour toy aviser ; car tu ne peus avoir pez se tu ne I'as k 

nous, et tel roy et tel (et moult en nommoient) et touz les 

avons mis a I'esp^e. Si te mandons qui tu non envoies 

tant de ton or et de ton argent chascun an, que tu nous 

retieignes a amis ; et se tu ne le fais, nous destruirons toy 

et ta gent aussi comme nous avons fait ceulz que nous avons 

devant nommez." " And be well assured," adds Joinvilie, 

^ Joinvilie, op. at., 48. 

2 I take it that Friar William accompanied the crusade to Egypt, 
for he speaks of the width of the Nile at Damietta as one who had 
seen it, and of the annual rise of the river. 

3 Passiblement: " laboriously." 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 



XXXI 



" that he (the King) repented greatly for ever having sent 
thither." ^ 

If this mission was a diplomatic failure, it supplied King 
Louis, nevertheless, with much valuable and original infor- 
mation on the Mongols, their country, origin, customs and ^4^ y\~~ 
history. He learnt that the Tartarins had come from a ^ 
great sandy desert, which began at the eastern end of the i 
world at some marvellous rocky mountains, which no one / 
had ever passed, and behind which were confined the people ' 
of Got and Margoth,^ who are to come with Antichrist at the 
end of the world. He then heard of their first great chief and 
his laws (though Friar Andrewdid not mention Chingis Chan 
by name), of his miraculous conversion to Christianity after 
a vision in which God had promised him dominion over 
Prester John, and of his warring with him ; of Christianity 
among the Mongols ; of the eight hundred chapels on carts 
seen in one camp; of the German prisonersat Talas;^of the 
many ruined cities passed on the long journey of a year, 
travelling ten leagues a day ; of the huge piles of bleached 
human bones marking the devastating march of the 
Mongols ;* of the fires through which they had sought to 
force his envoy to pass, with the presents he bore, before his 
audience with the Regent. He must have heard with 
special delight of the presence in south-eastern Russia of 
a great Mongol Christian chief, Sartach, son of the 
mighty Batu — a story believed alike by Christians and 



1 Joinville, op. «*/., 148. 

* Clearly a reference to the Great Wall of China. The people of Gog 
and Magog had been heretofore placed south of the Caucasus (supra, 
p. xvii). Friar Andrew now locates them to the east of the Tartars 
(conf. Marco Polo, i, 276, 283). 

3 See Rubruck's narrative, infra, p. 136. 

^ Sempad, brother of King Heythum of Little Armenia, wrote to the 
King of Cyprus, that along his route to the Mongol court he had 
passed a hundred thousand (!) piles of bones of those killed by the 
Tartars (William of Nangis, 360. Conf. Friar John's account, infra, 

p. '3)- 



XXXll INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

Mohammedans; and of many other things equally new and 
strange, but all encouraging to the Christian King's and to 
Friar William of Rubruck's hopes of conversion and con- 
sequent peace.^ We are able with the scanty notices at 
our disposal to gain but slight knowledge of the route 
followed by Friar Andrew. We know only that he started 
from Antioch. It seems likely thtit he went by way of the 
great northern route through Little Armenia, Caesarea in 
Cappadocia, Sivas and Erzerum : the same road followed by 
Friar William of Rubruck, but in the opposite direction, in 
1255. After passing through Tiflis, he went either to 
Taurinum (Tabriz) or to the camp in the plain of Mugan, 
where were usually the Mongol headquarters for western 
Persia ; and where, I suppose, he found Ilchikadai, and 
delivered the letters he bore ; and where also the prudent 
David probably left him. Friar Andrew and his com- 
panions, having accomplished this part of their mission, 
skirted the southern shores of the Caspian, and thence, 
probably by way of the Syr daria valley, they reached 
Chimkent and Talas.*^ Here they turned eastward, crossed 
the Chu and Hi rivers south of the Balkash, and reached 
the camp of Ogul Gaimish on the river Imil, a little to the 
north-east of the lake. As to the route followed on the 
return journey, we have but one indication concerning it — 

^ See for the above details, 'Joinville, 147, et seq,^ and Rubruck's 
narrative, passim. 

2 William of Nangis (365, 366) says that the King sent 
"missions" to Ilchikadai and the Great Khan ; but they were both 
entrusted to Brother Andrew, who is styled capitaneus et magister. 
Rubruck tells us {infra^ p. 119) that Friar Andrew had skirted the 
southern and eastern shores of the Caspian ; he also refers {infra, 
p. 136) to this envoy having mentioned (presumably to him in con- 
versation) the presence of German captives at Talas. I take it that 
he had actually seen them there, for otherwise the extremely careful 
Rubruck would certainly have noted that Andrew had only heard of 
their presence. Mangu told Rubruck that Ogul Gaimish received Friar 
Andrew's mission ; and as this Regent resided in the ordu of Kuyuk 
on the Imil, the envoy evidently did not go further east than this 
point. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xxxiii 

that furnished by Rubruck — that they went along the 
eastern shore of the Caspian.^ This suffices, however, 
to establish the fact that the route followed coming west- 
ward from the Balkash must have been, as far as the 
Caspian, a nearly due east and west one, parallel to that 
followed later on by Rubruck himself, though perhaps to 
the south of it. 

" Friar Andrew had hardly finished relating his adventures, 
and the King was still at Caesarea, when there arrived from 
Constantinople a mission under Philip of Toucy, the 
son of the former Regent of the Empire.^ From him the 
King heard of the wonderful adventures of this knight and 
other noblemen sent by the Emperor Baldwin II to the 
Comans of southern Russia. Philip told him of this 
people's way of swearing friendship by the killing of a 
dog ; of the burial he had seen of one of their chiefs, with 
whom were interred a squire and a horse ; and many other 
strange tales. It seems likely that among this party 
of knights (there were ten in all) was one called Baldwin 
of Hainaut, who had not only been to the Comans* country 
on this mission, but had actually married while there the 
daughter of the Coman Prince.^ More than that, he had 



1 It is highly improbable that the mission in going skirted both the 
southern and the eastern shores of the Caspian, for there was abso- 
lutely no reason for the Mongols to make an envoy travelling east- 
ward go up north along the eastern shore of the Caspian, neither 
Batu nor any of the other great chiefs living between the Caspian 
and the Aral. King Heythum, in 1253, going from Cilicia to the 
Mongol court, travelled by way of Derbend and the mouth of the 
Volga, but then he was anxious to see Sartach. 

2 Joinville says Narjoe (Narjot) de Toucy, but Du Cange and sub- 
sequent editors have shown that the envoy to St. Louis must have 
been Philip, son of Narjot. 

' There can be little doubt that this Baldwin was on the mission, 
for Rubruck in his narrative speaks of him as a person well known to 
King Louis, which he could not have been otherwise, for he had been 
for many years past in the service of the emperors of Constantinople. 
On this personage, see infra^ p. 102. 



^ 



xxxiv INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

travelled also through Asia, sent probably on a mission by 
the Emperor and had gone as far as the camp of the 
Mongol emperor near Karakorum. From him Friar 
William of Rubruck got much valuable information, 
which finally decided him in favour of the road through 
Russia rather than that by way of Armenia in journeying 
to the Mongols. The former route he was already familiar 
with from Friar John of Pian de Carpine's mission, and it 
had the great advantage of taking him to the camp of 
Sartach, the Christian Mongol, from whom he might 
expect help on his journey, and assistance in establishing 
a mission among the Mongols. 

So pleased was King Louis with De Toucy and the 
knights who accompanied him, that he retained them near 
him for a year before he would let them go back to 
Constantinople. This gave William of Rubruck, who had 
long since made up his mind to try the venture, all the 
necessary time to complete his preparations. The King 
readily gave him the small sum of money he needed 
to defray his expenses, with letters to Sartach and to 
the Emperor of the Mongols, commending him and his 
companions to their kindness, but carefully avoiding 
giving them any official character. After the insolent 
letter sent him by Ogul Gaimish, self-respect forbade his 
attempting to open formal friendly relations with this 
people — at least for the time being. Queen Margaret 
gave the Friar a beautifully-illuminated psalter, and prob- 
ably some of the many rich church vestments he carried 
with him. These, together with a Bible, a present of the 
King, his breviary, one or two cherished devotional 
books, and, strangely enough, a valuable Arabic manu- 
script, composed his simple outfit. And so equipped 
he embarked, probably at Acre, and with the returning 
De Toucy mission, some time in the early spring of 
1252, reached Constantinople safely, and there remained 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. XXXV 

till May 7th of the following year, when he started for 
Mongolia.^ 

In the preceding pages I have endeavoured to indicate 
briefly the extent of the knowledge possessed by Europe 
of the Mongols and their empire down to the middle 
of the thirteenth century, and to show the probable 
sources of information Friar William of Rubruck had avail- 
able as a preparation for his great journey of over ten 
thousand miles through Asia. I should have liked to be 
able to say something of the traveller himself, but we 
know absolutely nothing about him save his own state- 
ment, that at the time of his journey he was " a very 
heavy man." France can claim him as her child, for 
there is little doubt that he was a native of the village 
of Rubruck in old French Flanders, and not of Ruysbrock 
in Brabant, a few miles south of Brussels, as has been 
commonly supposed ; but the date of his birth is unknown, 
as is that of his death.^ His narrative affords us, fortu- 



^ There is evidence in Rubruck's narrative that his travelling com- 
panion, Bartholomew of Cremona, had been residing in Nicea 
{in/ra^ p. 170). As to his interpreter, nicknamed Homo Dei, it is 
more likely that he took him along with him from Palestine. That 
Rubruck left Palestine in 1252 seems to me probable from the strange 
error he has made concerning the reigning emperor of Trebizonde : 
an error which he could not possibly have committed had he been 
with St. Louis throughout 1252, when the mission from Trebizonde 
arrived at Sidon (see infra, p. 46, note 3) Yule {Ency. Brit., xxi, 46) 
thinks he must have received his commission at Acre, where the King 
was residing from May 1252 to June 1253. 

2 See Yule's admirable article in Ency. Brit (Ninth Edition), xxi, 
46-47 ; and his Marco Polo, ii, 536 ; Oscar Peschel, Erkunde, 165 etseq.; 
F. M. Schmidt, Ueber Rubruks Reise, 163 ; Michel and Wright, ^/^. «*/., 
205 ; de Backer, Rubrouck, iii et seq.; da Civezza, Saggio di Bibliografia^ 
San Franciscana, 503 ; Nouvelle Biographic G^nSrale, xxxii, 938-940 ; 
Hist litteraire de la France, xix, w^et seq. 

The name of our author's birthplace is variously written. Of the 
^\^ MSS. used in the preparation of Michel and Wright's edition of 
the text, four have Rubruc, and one Rubruk. In other works where 
he is mentioned we find his name spelled Rubruk, Rubruck, Rubruc, 
Rubrouck, Rubroc, Risbrouc, Risbrouke, Risbrooke, Ruysbrok, Ruysbrock, 
Ruysbrocke, Rubruquis, Rubricis and Rubriquis. If, as seems highly 
probable, the place of his birth was the village of Rubrouck, as 
written in Flemish, we should write his name in English Rubruck 

C 2 



xxxvi INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

nately, abundant indications of his character. " These 
paint for us," says Yule, " an honest, pious, stouthearted, 
acute and most intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition 
of knowledge ; the author, in fact, of one of the best 
narratives of travel in existence. His language, indeed, 
is Latin of the most un-Ciceronian quality — dog-Latin we 
fear it must be called ; but, call it what we may, it is in his 
hands a pithy and transparent medium of expression. In 
spite of all the difficulties of communication, and of the 
badness of his turgemanus or dragoman, he gathered a 
mass of particulars, wonderfully true or near the truth, not 
only as to Asiatic nature, geography, ethnography and 
manners, but as to religion and language . . ."^ 

I would only venture to add to this well-deserved praise 
of Friar William, bestowed on him by the greatest authority 
on mediaeval geography of our century, that not only was 
he keen and intelligent, but conscientious and thorough in 
a high degree. Study of his narrative shows his careful 
preparation for his work as an explorer. Solinus and 
Isidorus of Seville are, it is true, his only geographical 
authorities ; still he makes careful use of them, not quoting 
them blindly, but comparing every statement of theirs 
with the facts as he observed them. The only quotations 
he makes are taken from the Bible, and are not always 
accurate, and from Virgil's Aeneid\ but we gather from 
a few passing references in his narrative that he had 
read historical works and the classical poets, and had 
specially noted the movements Europewards of the tribes 



The editors of the Biographic Gencrale say he was born about 12 15. 
Aug. St. John (as quoted by the editors of the text of the Soc, de 
Geographies 205) puts it at about 1220— Daunou (^Hist. litL de la France^ 
126) thinks he died about 1270, but this is purely conjectural — Da 
Civezza {Sforia Universalle^ i, 429) says 1230, and Schmidt (163) 
between 1220 and 1230. There is, so far as I am aware, absolutely no 
authority for any of these dates. 

1 Yule, Eticy. Brit., xxi, 47 ; conf. F. M. Schmidt, 166. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xxxvii 

of western Asia since the time of the great Hunnic inva- 
sions : which latter presented to his mind many striking 
analogies with the Mongol ones just over. While preparing 
for his journey at Constantinople in the winter and spring 
of 1253, he saw the Armenian traders who then as now 
swarmed there, and most of whom had had experience 
among the Mongols ; and from them, and possibly from the 
resident Armenian monks, he also secured information on 
the Tartars and the countries he was to visit. During his 
residence in Asia Minor and in Egypt he had probably 
acquired a tolerable knowledge of Arabic, as he appears to 
have been able to converse freely with any of the " Sara- 
cens " he met during his journey ; and he tells us himself 
that he picked up enough Mongol to be able to control, or 
perhaps even dispense with, his very poor interpreter. In 
short, I think, we may safely say that he left no stone 
unturned to fit himself thoroughly for the work he had 
undertaken. 

Let us now note what Friar William was able to add by 
his journey and careful observations to Europe's sum of 
general and geographical knowledge. His principal con- 
tributions to geographical science were the indication of^^i ^ 
the true sources and course of the Don and Volga, the lake ^^ 
nature of the Caspian,^ the identity of Cathay with the 
classical country of the Seres, a description of the Balkash 
and of the inland basin of which it occupies the eastern 
extremity, the first description of the city of Karakorum, 
the first mention of Kaoli or Korea, and of the Tungusic 
tribes of Orengai, the Orienguts of mediaeval Mohammedan 
writers. Natural history owes to him the earliest mention 



1 Albert of BoHstaedl had at about the same date stated that the 
Caspian was a lake, not a gulf, but he had simply accepted the views 
of Ptolemy. The fact had alieady been established by the Arab 
geographers of the tenth century — by Ibn Haukal for example — but 
Europe was in ignorance of this. 



Xxxvill INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

in western writers of the wild ass or kulan^ and of the 
argali or ovis Poli. Ethnology is indebted to him for 
interesting facts too numerous to mention. To him lin- 
guistics and anthropology owe the first accurate information 
on the Goths of the Crimean coast, on the identity of the 
Comans with the Kipchak, Turks and Cangle, on the 
difference between the Tartars and the Mongols, on the 
connexity of the languages of the Bashkirds {Pascatir) and 
the Hungarians, on the origin of the Danubian Bulgarians, 
on the affinity between the languages of the Russians, Poles, 
Bohemians and Slavs and that of the Wandals, and on that 
of the Turkish language with that of the Uigurs and Comans. 
He was the first to give a nearly accurate explanation of 
the Chinese script, to note the true peculiarities of the 
Tibetan, Tangutan (Turkish), and Uigur modes of writing. 
These discoveries in this special line of research are not 
all we owe to this most perspicacious traveller ; but I will 
not prolong the list, as we have a number of other im- 
portant ones in the field of the history of religions to 
credit him with. He was the first to describe the Christian 
communities in the Mongol empire, and to give details 
of their rituals and the tenets of their faith ; we owe to 
him the earliest descripition of the Lamas or northern 
Buddhist monks, of their temples, their ritual, their Living 
Buddhas, of their use of prayer beads, and of their favourite 
formula, Om mani padme, Imin. He shows the peculiarities 
of the Uigurs' form of worship, and likewise of their dress. 
Peculiarities and superstitions of the Greek and Armenian 
churches did not escape him ; in short, no one traveller 
since his day has done half so much to give a correct 
knowledge of this part of Asia. 

It was Friar William's desire to present his report to 
King Louis in person ; but on arriving in Cyprus in 1255 
he found that the King, whom he hoped to see in Palestine, 
had returned to France ; and the Provincial of his Order 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xxxix 

refused to allow him to follow him there. He took him 
with him to Acre, to the house of his Order, directing him 
to transmit his report to the King from that place. This 
the traveller reluctantly did, requesting at the same time 
the King to use his influence with the Provincial of the 
Franciscans in Syria, who appears to have belonged to the 
Province of France, to have him given permission to make 
a visit to France, to see the King and the personal friends 
he had there. 

King Louis must have complied with Friar William's 
request, for we learn from Roger Bacon that he met the 
traveller in France a few years later, and conversed with 
him about his discoveries and adventures. We k;iow that 
he made a careful examination of his report, nearly every 
geographical detail of which we find embodied in his famous 
Opus Majus} 

It was fortunate for Friar William that he met, during 
his probably short stay in France, this brilliant and ap- 
preciative writer, for he alone saved him and the results 
of his arduous journey from utter oblivion for three 
centuries and a half: as it was only in 1600 that Richard 
Hakluyt published a portion of his report from a manu- 
script belonging to Lord Lumley,^ which Purchas in 1625 
republished and completed, in hxsPilgrimeSy from another 



^ See Opus Majus ^ i, 354 et seq. Bacon says he had made special 
use, in writing his geographical description of the northern parts of 
the world, of the work of William of Rubruck, " quern libruvi diligenter 
vidi, et cum ejus auctore contuli, et similiter cum multis aliis^ qui 
loca orientis et meridana rimata sunt^^ {Opus Majus ^ i, 305). The 
other travellers were probably returning crusaders. Bacon was 
familiar, however, with the work of John of Pian de Carpine {pp. cit,, 
i,37i). 

- So little known was Rubruck at the time when Hakluyt published 
his work, that Gerard Mercator wrote to Hakluyt in 1580, in reply to a 
letter telling him of the Itinerarium: " I have not" yet seen the complete 
treatises of William of Tripoli {sic) and John du Plan Carpin ; I have 
only seen some extracts of them in other works" (Bergeron, Traite des 
Tartares^ ii, 116, 121). The extracts were probably solely taken from 



xl INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

MS. in Bennet (now Corpus Christi) College, Cannbridge, 
the text having been supplied hinn, he says (vol. iii, p. 23), 
" by Master Hacluits industrie." 

Between the date of the writing of Bacon's Opus Majus 
(1264) and the middle of the present century, there are 
found but the briefest mentions of Friar William in the 
numerous works written by members of the Franciscan 
and other Orders. Vincent of Beauvais did not know of 
the existence of Friar William's Itinerariuni ; at all events, 
not a single detail concerning the Mongols given by him is 
traceable to this work. Wadding, the great historian of 
the Franciscans, makes no mention of him at all in his 
Annates, though he devotes many pages to the missions of 
Pian de Carpine, Lawrence of Portugal, Ascelin, etc. ; while 
in his Scriptores Ordinis Minoruni he misquotes an earlier 
reference to him by John Pitts, though he makes him out 
to have been a native of Brabant instead of an English- 
man, as Pitts had imagined him to be. He credits him 
with having written an Itinerariuni Orientis, De Gestis 
Tartarorum, which many subsequent writers have supposed 
to be two distinct works, whereas it evidently designates 
the two parts into which Friar William's report, like that of 
his predecessor, Friar John of Pian de Carpine, is divided. 
Lasor a Varea (ii, 297) mentions Risbrooke among the 
writers who refer to Palestine, and (ii, 555) as' having 
written a work de Tartarorum gestis. De Soto (ii, 46) has a 
short reference to our traveller, gives the title of his work 
as Itinerariuni ad partes Orientates, una cum retatione Tar- 
tarormn} and refers to the existence of several MSS. of it 
in the British libraries, to Bergeron's translation, and to its 



Friar John's Historia Mongalorwn, which had been frequently quoted 
in works of the thirteenth and subsequent centuries. 

^ Bacon {pp. cit., ii, 368), speaking of the Tartars' claim to universal 
dominion, says that it is referred to " /;/ libro fratris Gulielmi de 
moribus Tartarorum^'^ but this, I take it, is only a sub-title, as it were, 
of the first part of his work. 




INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. xli 

having also appeared in Dutch in a collection of travels 
published in Leyden in 1706. ^ , 

We must come down to Father da Civezza's Storia 
Univcrsalle Delle Missione Francescana (i 857-1 861), to find 
a full account of Rubruck's journey, and appreciation of its 
great worth, by a member of his Order ; and even in this 
valuable work the author has, it would appear, been con- 
tent to quote from the faulty translation of Bergeron 
(1634) ; and throughout his notice of our traveller he writes 
his name Rubriquis} 

The only explanation which suggests itself of this 
neglect of Friar William's work by writers of his Order, is 
that his mission, like that of Friar Andrew of Longumeau, 
equally ignored in their works, was undertaken by order 
of and for the King of France, and not for the sole advance- 
ment of the interests of the Church and the Franciscans. 
Though this explanation is hardly satisfactory, for the 
glory gained by the traveller redounded necessarily on the 
Order to which he belonged, and the Franciscan, Roger 
Bacon, had promptly made known to the Pope its great 
value, I cannot but think the neglect in which Friar 
William was left for so many centuries was, to a great 
extent, intentional. Even at the present day, the great 
history of the Franciscan Order which is being published 
by the Fathers of the College of San Bonaventura, does 
not contain a single reference to Friar William or Friar 
Andrew of Longumeau. j. 

^ I have not been able to consult a number of works which have 
appeared since 1800, containing biographical notices of Rubruck, but 
those I have seen consider him " untrustworthy," " credulous," 
"superstitious" (see, e,g,^ Nouvelle Biograpliie Univ., xKxii, 938 ; 
///>/. ////. de la France, xix, 126 ; and also see Da Civezza, op. cit., i, 
429-457). The same writer, in his Saggio di Bibliografia, 503, 
reproduces de Backer's biographical notice of our author, the only 
good part of the book. Cahun, 392, speaks of " I'inintelligence du 
moine Rubruquis . . . son etroitesse de jugement et d'informations qui 
delate ^ chaque ligne dans une relation pleine de mots spirituels, mais 
vide de serieux." 




xlii INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

In 1839, the Soci^t6 de Geographic of Paris published, in 
the Fourth Volume of its Recueil de Voyages et de M^moires, 
what may be considered the editio princeps of the I titter- 
arium ; in which the editors, no less distinguished scholars 
than Francisque Michel and Thomas Wright, availed 
themselves not only of the texts published by Hakluyt and 
Purchas, but of five other MSS. since discovered, three 
from Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, one from the 
British Museum, and one from the Library of the Univer- 
sity at Leyden. None of the manuscripts present any vari- 
ations of importance, the different readings in them being 
clearly attributable in nearly every case to negligent 
copying; all have been derived from a single original. It 
is therefore hardly probable that the discovery of any new 
manuscripts can alter in any important detail the text as 
given by the two learned editors.^ 

Of the translations which have appeared of Friar 
William's work little may be said ; all of them have been 



* See Recueil de Voyages et de AUmoires^ iv, 199-212. The MSS. 
of Cambridge bear the numbers Lxvi, ccccvii, and CLXXXi in 
Nasmith's Catalogue of the Parker Collection. The Brit. Mus. MS. 
is numbered 14. C. xiii of the King's Library, and the MS. of Leyden 
is No. ']'] of the Vossius Collection. The editors mention (p. 210) 
another MS., said to exist in the Collection of Sir Thomas Phillips, 
but they were unable to consult it. Researches recently made by 
Mr. W. Foster, at the request of the editor of the present volume, 
have also failed to discover it. As to the MS. referred to by the same 
editors (p. 202) as existing in the Vatican Libraiy, Father Francesco 
Ehrld, the learned Prefect of that library, has very kindly made a careful 
search for it', but without result. It is true that this MS. is catalogued 
by Montfaucon {Bibl. bibl.^ i, 86) as in the Petau Collection under the 
two numbers 292, 933 ; but Father Ehrl^ is of opinion that the entry is 
erroneous, or, at all events, that the MS. was not sent to the Vatican 
when this collection was presented to it by Queen Christina of 
wSweden. Mr. de Vries, the librarian of the University of Leyden, 
to whom Father Ehrld wrote on the subject, is also of opinion that the 
supposed Vatican MS. is in all likelihood the No. ']'] of the Vossius 
Collection, referred to previously. Henri Cordier {Odoric^ Ixxxiii) 
mentions a MS. of Rubruck in the No. 686 of the Dupuy Collection 
of the National Library of Paris. Mr. H. Leon Feer has kindly 
collated this MS. with Michel and Wright's text, and shown that ii 
is an exact reproduction of the text as published by Hakluyt. It bears 
date 1646, and was probably copied from Hakluyt's published text. 



Introductory notice. xHii 

made on Hakluyt's or Purchas' renderings. Astley, 
Robert Kerr, Pinkerton in English ; Bergeron, Fleury, 
TAbW Provost, La Harpe, and more recently (1888) 
Eugene Miiller in French ; the Allgemeine Historic der 
Reisen (1747) in German, and many others, are but so many 
editions of the old English translations. The translations 
of Hakluyt and Purchas, however valuable, were inevitably 
inaccurate in many places, for a more thorough knowledge 
of Asia and the Mongols than was possessed by Europe 
at the time was necessary for a correct rendering of Friar 
William's text. Purchas truly remarks : " the Friers Latin, 
for some barbarous words and phrases, hath beene trouble- 
some to translate." It is, however, to say the least, strange 
that most writers of the eighteenth and the nineteenth 
centuries have preferred to avail themselves of these 
translations, instead of making use of the text as pub- 
lished by Hakluyt, Purchas, or the Soci^t^ de G^ographie. 
Desguignes, Karamsin, R^musat, d'Ohsson, and even Henri 
Cordier in his splendid edition of Friar Odoric, quote from 
Bergeron's translation. 

Though often quoting him, none of those who have used 
the rich mine of information opened to them by the old 
monk seem to have fully realised its value ; or, at all 
events, they have not given adequate expression to their 
appreciation of his great merit, Purchas alone excepted, 
who says he holds the Friar's work " a Jewell of Antiquitie." 
It was reserved for Oscar Peschel,^ and especially/for Sir 



^ Oscar Peschel, Erdkunde {\6^\ says : "der Bericht des Ruysbroek, 
fast unbefleckt durch storende Fabeln, durch seine Naturvvahrheit als 
ein grosses geographisches Meisterstiick des IMittelalters bezeichnet 
werden darf." In 1877 Louis de Backer published a so-called original 
translation from the Latin of the Itinerarium. To the errors of 
previous translators he has added so many extraordinary blunders of 
his own that one is astonished that it was ever accepted by the 
learned editors of the valuable collection in which it appeared. 
Exclusive of Yule's invaluable notes on Rubruck, the only important 
work on the subject — and its value is inestimable — is the study of 



xliv INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 

Henry Yule, to whom geography owes so much, to put 
Friar William in the high place he so richly deserves 
among the great travellers of the world. " The generation 
immediately preceding his (Marco Polo's) own has be- 
queathed to us," the latter says, " in the Report of the 
Franciscan Friar William de Rubruquis on the mission 
with which St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, 
the narrative of one great journey which, in its rich 
detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and 
strong good sense, seems to me to form a Book of Travels 
of much higher claim than any one series of Polo*s chapters ; 
a book, indeed, which has never had justice done to it, 
for it has few superiors in the whole Library of Travel."^ 



Franz Max Schmidt, Ueber Rubriik^s Reise von 1253- 125 5, published 
in 1885. 

^ Yule, Marco Polo ^ i, 102. 




ITINERARY 
OF FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 



1253. 



May 


7. 


>» 


21. 


June 


1. 


»j 


3. 


j> 


5. 


jj 


12. 


» 


22. 


July 


20. 


» 


31- 


August 


3. 


>» 


5. 


September 16. 


»> 


27. 


October 


31. 


Novembei 


• 8. 


)) 


9. 


„ I 


8(?) 


» 


30. 


December 


3. 


>j 


6. 


j> 


13. 


» 


27. 


1254. 




January 


4. 


March 


29. 


April 


5. 


May 


24. 


j» 


30. 


August 


8. 


» 


18. 


September 16. 


October 


16. 


November i. 


» 


15. 



Left Constantinople. 

Reached Soldaia (Sudak). 

Left Soldaia. 

Met Tartars for first time. 

Reached Scata/s camp (Remained till 8th). 

Camp at Isthmus of Perekop. 

Reached first camp beyond Isthmus. 

Reached bank of Tanais (Don.— Remained till 

23rd). 
Reached Sartach's camp. 
Left Sartach's camp. 
Reached bank of Etilia (Volga). 
Left Batu's camp. 
Reached bank of Jaic (Ural). 
Took southerly course. 
Reached Kinchat. 
Took easterly course. 
Reached Cailac. 
Left Cailac. 

Reached head of Ala kul. 
Accelerated speed. 

Passed through gorge infested with devils. 
Reached Mangu's camp. 



Received in audience by Mangu. 

Left for Karakorum. 

Reached Karakorum. 

Audience of Mangu. 

Public discussion with Tuin. 

Received permission to leave. 

Left Karakorum. 

Reached Batu's camp. 

Left Batu's camp. 

Left Sarai. 

Reached mountains of Alans. 



xlvi ITINERARY OF FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 



1254. 




November 


17. 


» 


19. 


)» 


21. 


»» 


22. 


December 


23. 


1255. 




January 


13. 


February 


2. 


» 


15. 


,, i7(?). 


„ 22 


(?). 


March 23 (?). 


April 


4. 


» 


19. 


May 


5- 


n 


17- 


June 


16. 


n 


29. 


August 


'5* 



Reached Iron Gate (Derbend). 
Reached Samaron. 
Reached Samag. 
Entered plain of Mogan. 
Reached Naxua (Najivan). 



Left Naxua. 

At Ani. 

Reached head of Araxes. 

Reached Marsengen. 

Reached Camath on the Euphrates (Kara su). 

Reached wSebaste (Sivas). 

Reached Caesarea in Cappadocia. 

Reached Iconium (Konieh). 

Reached Curta on coast. 

Left Curta. 

Reached Cyprus. 

At Antioch. 

At Tripoli. 



TITLES OF BOOKS CITED BY ABBREVIATED 
REFERENCES. 



Abulgasi Bayadur Chan. Histoire GSnMof^que des Tartars. Tra- 
duite du Manuscript Tartare par D***. Leyden, 1726. i vol., 
i2mo. 

Ada Sanctorum, Ex Latinis et Graecis aliarumque gentium Monu- 
mentis^ etc. Paris. In 4to. 

Al Bekri. See Ibrf Alathir. 

Albericus Trium Fonlium. Chronicon. Edited by Leibnitz. Acces- 
siones Historicae. Hanover, 1698. Vol. ii. 

Ammianus Marcellinus. Rerum gestartnn. Nisard edit., Paris, 1869. 
In 4to. 

Analecta Franciscana^ sive Chronica aliaque varia documenta ad 
historiam Fratrum Minorufn spectantia. Edita a Patribus Col- 
legii S. Bonaventurae. Ad Claras Aquas (Quaracchi). 1887- 
1897. 22 vols., 4to (all published). 

Antoninos (?). Zametki xii-xv veka^ otnossiastchiasia k Krymskomu 
gorodu Siigdee (Sudaku)^ pripissanniya na Grecheskom Sinak- 
sare. In Zapiski Odesskago obstchestva istorii i drevnostei, v, 
1863, pp. 595-837. 

Arrian. Expeditio Alexandri. Muller's edit. In Didot's collection. 

Assemanus, Joseph Simonius. Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino- 
Vaticana. Rome, 1721. 4 vols., fol. Tovn^Wy De Scrip toribus 
Syris Monophyritis. 

Atkinson, Thomas Witlam. Oriental and Western Siberia : a Narra- 
tive of Seven Years' Explorations and Adventures in Siberia, 
Mongolia, the Kirghis Steppes, Chinese Tartary and Part of 
Central Asia. London, 1858. i vol., 8vo. 

Atkinson, Thomas Witlam. Travels in the Regions of the Upper and 
Lower Amoor and the Russian Acquisitions on the Confines of 
India and China. London, i860. 1 vol., 8vo. 

Baber. Mthnoires de. Traduits par Pavet de Courteille. Paris, 187 1. 
2 vols., 8vo. 

Bacon, Roger. Opus Majus. Edited by John Henry Bridges. Ox- 
ford, 1897. 2 vols., 8vo. 



xlviii TITLES OF BOOKS. 

Badger, George Percy. The Nestorians and their Rituals : with a 

Narrative of a Mission to Mesopotamia and Coordistan in 1842- 

1844. London, 1852. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Barbaro, Josafa. Travels to Tana and Persia. Thomas' translation, 

edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley. London, 1873. i vol., 8vo. 

(Hakluyt Soc.) 
Bartels, Max. Die Medicin der Nattinwlker. Ethnologische Beitrage 

zur Urgeschichte der Medicin. Leipzig, 1893. i vol., 8vo. 
Beal, Samuel. Buddhist Records of the Western World. Translated 

from the Chinese of Hiuen-tsiang (a.d. 629). London, 1884. 

2 vols , 8vo. 
Benjamin of Tudela. Voyage au tour du ?nonde^ commence Pan 

MCCXXiii. In Bergeron's Voyages, i. 
Bergeron, Pierre. Voyages fails principalement en Asie dans les xii, 

xiii^ xiv, et xv sibcles^ etc. La Haye, 1735. 2 vols., 4to. (Though 

usually quoted as Bergeron's, this work is a recast of that writer's 

work of 1634, by Van der Aa of Leyden. See d'Avezac, op, cit. 

439-442.) 
Bergman, Benjamin. Nomadische Streiferien unter den Kalmuken, 

in den Jahren 1802 und 1803. Riga, 1805. 4 vols., i2mo. 
Bitchurin, Father Hyacinthe. Du Cha?nanisme en Chine, In Nou- 

velles Annates des Voyage, Nouv. sdrie, xxvi, pp. 287-316. 
Bouche-Leclerc, A. Histoire de la Divination dans P Antiquity. Paris, 

1882. 4 vols., 8vo. 
Bretschneider, E. Notices of the Medicevai Geography and History Oj 

Central and Western Asia. Drawn from Chinese and Mongol 

writings, and compared with the observations of Western Authors 

in the Middle Ages. In fournal of the North China branch of 

the Royal Asiatic Society, New Series, vol. x, pp. 75-307. 
Bretschneider, E. On the Knowledge Possessed by the Ancient Chinese 

on the Arabs and Arabian Colonies and other Western Countries 

mentioned in Chinese Records. London, 187 1. In 8vo. 
Bretschneider, E. Archceological and Historical Researches on Peking 

and its En7f irons. Shanghai, 1876. In 8vo. 
Bretschneider, E. Notes on Chinese Mediceval Travellers to the West, 

Shanghai, 1875. ^^i 8vo. 
Bunbury, E. H. A History of Ancient Geography among the Greeks 

and Romans, fro?n the Earliest Ages till the Fall of the Roman 

Empire. 2nd edit. London, 1883. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Busbeck. Epistolae deque rebus Turcicis. Leipzig, 1689. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Cahun, Leon. Introduction a P histoire de PAsie. Turcs et Mongols. 

Des origines k 1405. Paris, 1896. i vol., 8vo. 
Castren, Matthias Alexander. Ethnologische Vorlesungen iiber die 

Altaische Volker, nebst Samojedischen Marchen und Tartarische 

Heldensagen. St. Petersburg, 1857. i vol., 8vo. 



TITLES OF BOOKS. xlix 

Castren, Matthias Alexander. Reisen im Norden. Leipzig, 1853. 

I vol., i2mo. 
Chabot, J. B. Histoire de Marjabalaha Illy Patriarche des Nestoriens 
1 281- 131 7), et du moine Rabban Cauma^ Ambassadeur du Rot 
Argoun en Occident {i22>7). Paris, 1895. i vol., 8vo. 
Chandra Das, Sarat. Indian Pandits in the Land of Snow, Calcutta, 

1893. I vol., 8vo. 
Chardin, Le Chevalier. Voyages en Perse et autres lieux de V Orient, 

Nouvelle ^dit. Par L. Langl^s. Paris, 181 1. 10 vols., 8vo. 
Chavannes, Edouard. Le Nestorianisme et Pinscription de Kara 
Balgasoun. Paris, 1897. In 8vo. KxtrsiCt from /oumat A siatigue, 
1897. 
Chavannes, Edouard. Voyageurs Chinois chez les Khitan et les 
Joutchen, Paris, 1898. i vol., 8vo. (Extracts from Journal 
Asiatique^ No. 6, 1897 ; No. 8, 1898.) 
Chien Han shu. The Book of the Anterior Han, or the Annals of the 
Early Han Dynasty, covering the period from B.C. 206 toA.D. 24, 
C/tin shu. The Book of the Chin Dynasty, covering the period from 

A.D. 265 to 419. 
Chou shu. The Book of Chou, or the Annals of the Chou Dynasty, 

covering the period from A. D. 557 to 581. 
Clarke, Edward D. Travels in Russia^ Tartary^ and Turkey. Edin- 
burgh, 1852. 1 vol., 8vo. 
Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de. Narrative oj the Embassy to the Court of 
Timour at Samarcand^ a.d. 1403-6. Translated by Clements 
R. Markham. London, 1859. i vol., Z\o. (Hakluyt Soc.) 
Codinus. See Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Thematibus et de Administrando 

Imperio. See Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus. De Ceremoniis Aulae Byzantinae. See 

Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. 
Contarini, Ambrosio. The Travels of to the Great Lord Ussuncassan, 
King of Persia, in 1473. Edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley. 
London, 1873. ^ vol., 8vo. (Hakluyt Soc.) 
Cordier, Henri. Les Voyages en Asie au XIV^ siecle du bienheureux 
frlre Odoric de Pordenone, Religieux de Saint Frangois. Paris, 
1 89 1. I vol., small 4to. 
Corpus Scriptorum Historicae Byzantinae. Editio emendatior et 
copiosior, Consilio B. G. Niebuhrii instituta. Bonn, 1831- 
184 (?) 8vo. 
Cosmas Indicopleustes. The Christian Topography. Translated from 
the Greek by J. W. McCrindle. London, 1897. i vol., 8vo. 
(Hakluyt Soc). 
Da Civezza, Marcellino. Storia universale delle Missione Frances cane, 
Rome, 1 85 7- 1 86 1. 5 vols., 8vo. 

d 



1 TITLES OF BOOKS. 

Da Civezza, Marcellino. Saggio di Bibliografia geographica^ ethno- 

graphica San Franciscana. In Prato, 1879. i vol., 8vo. 
D'Avezac. Relation des Mongols ou Tartares par le frlre Jean du Plan 

de Carptn, de 1' ordre des Fr^res M incurs, Ldgat du Saint-Si^ge 

Apostolique, Nonce en Tartarie, pendant les anndes 1245, 1246 et 

1247, et Archeveque d'Antivari, etc. Paris, 1839. 4to. (In 2nd 

part of vol. iv of the Recueil de Voyages et de Mdmoires publie 

par la Societd de Giographie.) 
De Backer, Louis. Guillaume de Rubrouck^ Ambassadeur de Saint 

Louis en Orient. Rdcit de son voyage traduit de 1' original Latin 

et annote par. Paris, 1877. i vol., i8mo. 
Deguignes. Histoire G^n^rale des Huns^ des Turcs^ des Mongols^ 

et des autres Tartares Occidentaux, etc. Paris, 17 56- 17 58. 

5 vols., 4to. 
De Morgan, J. Mission scientifique au Caucase. fetudes archeo- 

logiques et historiques. Paris, 1889. 2 vols., 4to. Tome ii, 

Recherches sur les origines des peuples du Caucase. 
D'Ohsson, le Baron C. Histoire des Mongols^ depuis Tchinguiz 

Khan jusqu'a Timour Bey ou Tamerlan. La Haye, 1834. 

4 vols. 8vo. 
De Soto, Fr. Joannis. Bibliotheca universa Franciscana. Matriti, 

1732. 3 vols., 4to. 
Deveria, G. Musulmans et Manichdens Chinois. In Journal Asi- 

atiquCy IX^ serie, vol. x. 

Deveria, G. Notes d'epigrapkie Mongole-Chinoise. Paris, 1897, in 8vo. 
(Extract irom Journal Asiatique, 1896.) 

Du Cange. Glossarium inediae et injimae Latinitatis, conditu a 
Carolo Dufresne Domino Du Cange cum supplementis integris 
D. P. Carpenterii at additamentis Adelungi et aliorum digessit 
G. A. L. Herschel. Paris, 1840. 7 vols., 4to. 

Dulaurier, Ed. Les Mongols d^aprh les historiens Armeniens. Frag- 
ments traduits sur les texts originaux. In Journal Asiatique^ 
V«s^rie, vol. xi (1858). 

Elias, Ney. See Mirza Haidar. 

Finlay, George. History of Greece. Tozer's edit., London, 1S77. 
7 vols., 8vo. 

Gibbon, Edward. Decline a?id Fall of the Roman Empire. W. 
Smith's edit., London, 1881. 8 vols., 8vo. 

Gombojevv, Galsang. Randbemerktmgen zu Piano Carpitii. In Me- 
langes Asiatiques de PAcadihuie des Sciences de St. Petersbourg^ 
1856, ii, pp. 650-666. 

Grcnard, Y. Mission scientifique dans la Haute Asie, 1890-1895. 
Paris, 1898. 3 vols., 4to. 



TITLES OF BOOKS. li 

Haiton. Histoire Orientale ou des Tartares. Traduit suivant I'edition 
Latine de Andrd Miiller, Greiffenhag. In Bergeron's Voyages^ 
vol. ii. 

Hakluyt, Richard. Collection of the Early Voyages^ Travels and Dis- 
coveries of the English Nation. London, 1809. 5 vols., 4to. 

(Vol. i, pp. 80-101, text of Rubruck ; pp. 101-129, translation.) 
Hammer, J. de. Histoire de P Empire Otto?nan^ depuis son origine 

jusqu'a nos jours. Traduit de I'allemand par J. J. Hellert. Paris, 

1835. 5 vols., 8vo. 
Hammer- Purgstall. ' Geschichte der Goldenen Horde in Kiptchak^ 

das ist der Mongolen in Russland. Pesth, 1840. i vol., 8vo. 
Haroldus, Franciscus. Epitome Annalium Ordinis Minorum. Rome, 

1662. 2 vols., fol. 
Haxthausen, A. von. Transcaucasia. Sketches of the Nations and 

Races between the Black Sea and the Caspian. London, 1854. 

I vol. , 8vo. 
Heyd, W. Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age. 

Edition frangaise par Furcy Raynaud. Paris, 1885. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Hou Han shu. The Book of the Posterior Han Dynasty, covering the 

period from a.d. 25 to 220. 
Howorth, H. H. History of the Mongols^ from the ninth to the 

nineteenth century. London, 1876. 4 vols., 8vo. y 

Ibn Alathir. Fragments de geographes ct d'historiens A rates ei 

Persans inedits^ relatifs aux anciens peuples du Caucase et de la 

Russie meridionale. Traduits et accompagnes de notes critiques, 

par M. Defr^mery. In Journ. Asiat.^ 4^ serie, xiii, 457-522 ; 

xiv, 447-513. 
Ibn Batuta. Voyages d^Ibn Batoutah. Texte Arabe, accompagne d'une 

traduction par C. Defremery et le Dr. B. R. Sanguinetti. Paris, 

1874-79. 4 vols., 8vo. 
Ibn Foszlan. Ibn Foszlan und anderer Araber Berichte iiber die 

Russen alterer Zeit. Text und Ubersetzung mit kritisch-philo- 

logischen Anmerkungen, etc., von C. M. Frahn. St. Petersburg, 

1823. I vol., 8vo. 
Ibn Haukal. The Oriental Geography of Ibn Haukaly an Arabian 

traveller of the tenth century. Translated by Sir William 

Ouseley. London, 1800. 1 vol., 4to. 
Ibn Khaldun. Notice sur les Proldgomenes Historiques de., par E. 

Quatrem^re. In Notices et Ext raits des Manuscrits, vol. xix, 

Pt. I. 
Ibn Khordadbeh. Le livre des routes et des provinces. Public, traduit 

et annote par C. Barbier de Meynard. Journal Asiatique^ 

Vie serie, v, pp. 5-127, 446-532- 



Ill tItLES OF BOOKS. 

Ishtakri. Das Buck der Lander^ von Schech Ebn Ishak el Farsi el 
Isztachri. Aus dem Arabischen iibersetzt von A. D. Mordtmann. 
Hamburg, 1845. i vol., 8vo. 

Isidorus. Sancti Isidori Hispalensis Episcopi Etymologiarum, 
Libri XX. In J. P. Migne's Patrologiae Cursus Computus^ 
omnium SS. Patrum, Doctorum Scriptorumque ecclesiasticorum 
qui ab aevo Apostolico ad Innocentii III tempora floruerunt. 
Vol. Ixxxii. Paris, 1850. In 4to. 

Jenkinson, Anthony. Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and 
Persia, London, 1886. 2 vols., 8 vo. (Hakluyt Soc.) 

Joinville, Le Sieur de. Histoire de Saint Louis. Francisque Michel 
edit. Paris, 1867. i vol., 8vo. 

Jordanus. The Wonders of the East. Translated by Henry Yule. 
London, 1863. i vol., 8vo. (Hakluyt Soc.) 

Jomandes. De Getarum sive Gothorum Origine et rebus gestis. 
Nisard edit., 1869. In 4to. 

Karamsin. Histoire de P Empire de Russie. Traduite par St. Thomas 
et Jauffret. Paris, 1819-1826. 11 vols., 8vo. Vols, x and xi 
translated by De Divoff. 

Lasor a Varea, Alph.- Universus Terrarum Orbis scriptorum calamo 
dileneatus. Patavii, 1717. 2 vols., fol. 

Lebeau. Histoire du Bas Empire, Brosset edit. Paris, 1824. 21 
vols., 8vo. 

Le Bruyn, Corneille. Voyages de, par la Moscovie en Perse, et aux 
Indes Orientales. La Haye, 1732. 5 vols., small 4to. 

Lejean, G. Ethftographie de la Turquie d^ Europe. In Petermann^s 
Geograph. Mittheilungen. Erganzungsband, i860 und 1861. 

Liang shu. Book of Liang, or the Annals of the Liang Dynasty, 
covering the period from a.d. 502 to 556. 

Liverani, Francesco. Fra Giovanni da Plan di Carpine^ nel contado 
di Magione. Viaggiatore e descrittore. Perugia, 1S76. 8vo. 

Ma Tuan-lin. Wen hsien t'ung k'ao. In 348 books. (The best- 
known Encyclopaedia in Chinese. It covers the period from the 
commencement of Chinese history to the early part of the 
thirteenth century. Books 324-348 relate to foreign tribes and 
nations, and are composed entirely of extracts from the Annals 
and other authoritative works. See Wylie, Notes on Chinese 
Literature^ 55.) 

Mamachio, Th. Maria. Annalium Ordinis Praedicatorum, Rome, 
1756. I vol., fol. (all published). 

Marco Polo. The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning 
the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East. Translated and edited by 
Henry Yule. 2nd edit. London, 1875. 2 vols., 8vo. 

Masudi. Les Prairies d^or, Texte et traduction par C. Barbier de 
Maynard et Pavet de Courteille. Paris, i86i-i877- 9 vols., 8vo. 



tlTLES OF BOOKS. Hii 

Matthaeis Parisiensis. Chronica Majora. Edited by Henry R. 

Luard. London. 5 vols., 8vo. 
Maundevile, Sir John. The Voiage and Travaile of. Edited by 

J. O. Halliwell. London, 1883. i vol., 8vo. 
Menander Protector. In Fragmenta His tort corum Graecorum, of 

C. Muller, vol. iv. Paris, 1868. 4to, Didot edit. 
Mesalek al-absar. Notice de I'ouvrage qui a pour titre Mesalek 

al-absar, par M. Quatrem^re. In Notices et Extraits des Manu- 

scrits, vol. xiii, pp. 151-384. Paris, 1838. 4to. 
Michaud. Histoire des Croisades. Edit. Huillard Brdholles. Paris, 

1867. 4 vols., 8vo. 
Migne, I'Abbe. Nouvelle Encyclopddie thdologique. Vol. ix. Dic- 

tionaire de statistique religieuse. Paris, 185 1. 4to. 
Mirza Haidar. Tarikh-i-Rashidi. N. Elias and E. Denison Ross's 

translation. London, 1898. i vol., 8vo. 
Muller, Carolus. Geographi Graeci ?ninores. Paris, 1882. 2 vols., 

4to. Didot edit. 
Muller, Eugene. Deux Voyages en Asie au XI 11^ silcle^ par Guil- 

laume Rubruquis et Marco Polo. Paris, 1888. i vol., i8mo. 
Muratori. Scriptores rerum italicarum. Milan, 1723-175 1. 25V0IS., 4to. 
Nestor. Chronique dite de Nestor. Traduite sur le texte slavon-russe, 

avec introduction et commentaire critique par Louis Leger. Paris, 

1884. I vol., 4to. 
Pachymeres. See Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. 
Palladius, Archimandrite. Elucidations of Marco Polo's Travels in 

North China^ drawn from Chinese sources. In Journal of China 

branch of Royal Asiatic Society .^ New series, vol. x, pp. 1-54. 
Pallas, Professor. Voyages dans plusieurs Provinces de P Empire de 

Russie^ etc. Paris, 1788- 1793. 5 vols., 4to. 
Pears, Edwin. The Fall of Constantinople . London, 1885. i vol., 8vo. 
Pet shih. The Northern History, the history of the Northern Wei, 

Tse, Chou, and Sui Dynasties, covering the period from a.d. 386 

to 581. 
Peschel, Oscar. Geschichte der Erdkunde bis auf Alexander von 

Humboldt und Carl Ritter. 2nd edit. Miinchen, 1877. i vol., 8vo. 
Plinius. Naturalis Historiae, Traduction de Littre. Nisard edit., 

1865. 2 vols., 4to. 
Ploss, H. Das Kind in Brauch und Sitte der Volker. Anthropo- 

logische Studien. Leipzig, 1884. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Ploss, H., and Bartels, Max. Das Weib in der Natur- und Volker- 

kunde, Anthropologische Studien. Leipzig, 1895. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Pomponius Mela. De Situ Orbis, Nisard edit. Paris, 1895. 

I vol., 4to. 
Ptolemaeus, Claudius. Geographia, Edidit C. F. A. Nobbi. Editio 

stereotypa. Leipzig, 1843. 2 vols., i8mo. 



llV TITLES OF BOOKS. 

Purchas, Samuel. His Pilgrimes. London, 1625. 4to. VoL lii 

Part ii. (Booke i, pp. 1-52, translation of Rubruck.) 
Quatrem^re, Etienne. Histoire des Mongols de la Perse. Ecrite en 

persan par Raschid-Eldin. Tome i (all published). Paris, 1836. 

I vol., fol. 
Radloff, Wilhelm. Ethnographische Uebersicht der Turkstdmme^ 

Siberiens und der Mongolei. Leipzig, 1883. 8vo. 
Radloff, Wilhelm. Aus Siberien. Lose Blatter aus meinem Tage- 

buche. 2nd edit. Leipzig, 1893. 2 vols., 8vo. 
Rawlinson, George. History of Herodotus. A new English version, 

with copious notes and appendices. London, 1862. 4vols.,8vo. 
Rawlinson, George. Five Great Monarchies of the Ancient Eastern 

World. 4th edit. London, 1879. 3 vols., 8vo. 
Raynaldus, Odoricus. Annates Ecclesiastici^ ab anno MCXCViii. 

Lucae, 1747. 21 vols., 4to. 
Reclus, Elisde. Nouvelle G^ographie Universelley la terre et les 

hommes. Paris. In 4to. 
Reinaud. Relation des Voyages fails par les Arabes et les Persans 

dans PInde et a la Chine dans le IX^ siecle de Pere chrdtienne, 

Paris, 1845. 2 vols., i6mo. 
Remusat, Abel. Mdmoires sur les Relations politiques des Princes 

Chretiens et particulierement des Rois de France avecles Empereurs 

Mongols. Paris, 1822- 1824. 4to. 
Rockhill, William W. The Land of the Lamas. Notes of a Journey 

through China, Mongolia, and Tibet. New York, 1891. i vol., 8vo. 
Rockhill, William W. Notes on the Ethnology of Tibet. Washington? 

1895. ' v^l-j 8vo. 
Rockhill, William W. Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and 

Tibet in 1891 and 1892. Washington, 1894. i vol., 8vo. 
Sarrazin, Jean Pierre. See Joinville. 
Schiltberger, Johann. The Bondage and Travels of in Europe^ Asia 

and Africa^ 1396- 1427. Translated by J. Buchan Telfer. London, 

1879. I vol., 8vo. (Hakluyt Soc.) 
Schmidt, Franz Max. Ueber Rubruk^s Reise von 1253-1255. In Zeit- 

schrift der Ge sells chaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin^ vol. xx, pp. 161 - 

253. Berhn, 1885. In 8vo. 
Smirnow, Jean N. Les Populatiofis Finnoises des bassins de la Volga 

et de la Kama, fetudes d'dthnographie historique. Traduites 

par Paul Boyer. Paris, 1898. i vol., 4to (all published). 
Solini, C. Julii. Collectanae Rerum Memorabilium^ recognovit Th. 

Mommsen. Berlin, 1864. i vol., 8vo. 
Sporer. Die Seenzonc des Balchash nach Russischen Quellen. . In 

Petcrmatin^s Geographische Mittheilungen^ vol. xiv. 
Strabo. Strabonis Geographica. Graece cum versione reficta C. 

Mullero et F. Dubnero. Paris, 1853. 2 vols., 4to. 



TITLES OF BOOKS. !v 

Sui shu. Book of Sui, or the Annals of the Sui Dynasty, covering 
the period from a.d. 581 to 617. 

T^ang shu. Book of the T'ang Dynasty, covering the period from 
A.D. 618 to 906. (The "New" {Hsift) History is the work here 
referred to.) 

Taylor, Isaac. The Alphabet; an Account of the Origin and Develop- 
ment of Letters. London, 1883. 2 vols., 8vo. 

Theophanes, Byzantius. See Fragfnenta Historicorum Graecorwn^ 
vol. iv. 

Theophylactus, See Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae. 

Thomsen, Vilhelm. Inscriptions de TO rkhondechiffrdes. Helsingfors. 
1896. I vol., 8vo. 

Tott, Baron, de. Memoirs of^ on the Turks and the Tartars. London, 
1785 (?). 2 vols., i2mo. 

Toumefort, Pitton de. Relation d'un Voyage du Levant. Amsterdam, 
1718. 2 vols., 4to. 

Tylor, Edward B. Primitive Culture : Researches into the Develop- 
ment of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Language, Art and 
Custom. 2nd edit., London, 1873. 2 vols., 8vo. 

Tylor, Edward B. Researches into the Early History of Mankind 
and the Development of Civilization. 3rd edit., London, 1878. 
I vol., 8vo. 

Vincent of Beauvais. Speculi Majoris, Vincentii Burgundi Prae- 
sulis Belvacensis Ordinis Praedicatorum. Tomus quartus. Qui 
Speculum Historiale mscnhiiur. Venice, 1591. i vol., fol. 

Waddingus, Lucas. Annates Minorum^ seu. Trium Ordinum a St. 
Francisco Institutorum. Rome, 1731-1745. 19 vols., fol. 

Waddingus, Lucas. Scriptores Ordinis Minorufn. Quibus accessit 
syllabus illorum, qui ex eodem Ordine pro fide Christi fortiter 
occubuerunt. Priores atramento, posteriores sanguine Christianam 
religionem asserverunt. Recessnit Fr. Lucas Waddington. Rome, 
1750. I vol., 4to. 

IVei shu. Book of the Wei, or Annals of the Wei Dynasty, covering 

the period from a.d. 386 to 556. 
William of Nangis. In Recueil des Historiens des Gaules et de la 

France^ vol. xx. Paris, 1840. In 4to. 
William of Tyr. Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum. 

In Recueil des Historiens des croisades. Historiens occidentaux. 

Tome i. 2 Pts., 1844, fol. 
Wu tat shih. The History of the Five Dynasties of Liang, T'ang, 

Chin, Han and Chou ; covering the period from A.D. 907 to 959, 

(The " New " {Hsin) History is the work here referred to.) 



Ivi TITLES OF BOOKS. 

Yiian-chuang. Mimoires sur les Contries Occidentales, Traduit du 
Sanscrit en Chinois, en Tan 648, par Hiouen Thsang, et du 
Chinois en Fran^ais par Stanislas Julien. Paris, 1858. 2 vols., 
large 8vo. 

Yule, Henry. Cathay and the Way Thither j being a collection of 
mediaeval notices of China. London, 1866. 2 vols., 8vo. (Hakluyt 
Soc.) 

Yule, Henry, and Arthur C. Burnell. A Glossary of An^lo-Indian 
Colloquial Words and Phrases ^ etc. London, 1866. i vol., 8vo. 



ERRATA. 

P. 102, line 5 jrom bottom^ omit it that. 



P. 


122, 


)) 


2 „ read Batho. 


p. 


139, 


J> 


15 read Lepsinsk. 


P. 


139, 


» 


17 „ Balkash. 


p. 


158, 


«> 


9 from bottom^ read classical. 


p. 


160, 


j» 


5 „ „ Hai t'ieh shan 


p. 


162, 


>) 


7 „ „ Kuyuk. 


p. 


190, 


j> 


19, transpose reference (2) to line 20, after wora 
daughter. 


p. 


198, 


>» 


I, read Orengai. 


p. 


253, 


» 


II, „ his children. 



THE 

JOURNEY OF 
FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

TO THE 

COURT OF KUYUK KHAN, 

1245-1247, 

AS NARRATED BY HIMSELF. 



I. 

Of the route we went, and of the countries through which we 
• passed. 
(733)^ 

JIEN therefore we had arranged, as has 
been already stated elsewhere, to set 
out for the (land of the) Tartars we 
(left Lyons on the i6th April, 1245, 
and after travelling through Gernnany)^ 
came to the King of Bohennia.^ And 
having asked his advice (734), for we 
were personally acquainted with this lord from of old, 
which was the best road for us to go by, he answered that 

^ The numbers in brackets are those of the pages of the text in 
d'Avezac's edition. References to Rubruck's narrative are to the 
pages of the Latin text. 

'^ These details are supplied from Benedict's narrative. See also 
d'Avezac, 480. 

^ Wenceslaw I, born in 1205, reigned from 1240 to 1253. After 
having been a friend of the Emperor Frederic, he had gone over to the 
Pope's party, and become the leader of the German league against him. 




/ 



2 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

it were best, it seemed to him, to go by Poland and Ruscia ; 
for he had relatives in Poland, with whose aid we could enter 
Ruscia ; so having given us his letters and a good escort to 
take us through Poland, he caused also money to be given 
us to defray our travelling expenses through his lands and 
cities as far as (the court of) Boleslas, Duke of Selesia, his 
nephew, with whom also we were personally acquainted.^ 

II. The latter also gave us his letters and an escort and 
money for our expenses in his towns and cities, as far as 
Conrad, Duke of Lenczy.^ At that time, through God's 
special grace, the Lord Vassilko, Duke of Ruscia,^ had come 
there, from whom we learnt more accurately of the Tartars : 
for he had sent his ambassadors to them, who had come 
back to him and to his brother Daniel, bearing to the lord 
Daniel a safe conduct to go to Bati.* And he told us that 
if we wanted to go to them we must have rich presents to 
give them, for they were in the habit of asking for them 
most importunately, and if they were not given them (and 
this is quite true), an ambassador could not conduct his 
business satisfactorily with them ; and that furthermore he 
was looked upon as a mere nothing^ (735)- Not wishing 
that the affairs of the Lord Pope and of the Church should 
be obstructed on this account, with some of that which had 



^ He resided at Lignitz (d'Avezac, 481). Karamsin, iv, 21, says he 
was Conrad's son. 

2 Who was in Cracow (d'Avezac, 482). 

3 Vassilko, Duke of Volhynia and Vladimir, son of Roman and 
grandson of Rurik (Karamsin, iii, 134, iv, 100, 142 ; d'Avezac, 482). 

* Daniel, Duke of Galitch. He had fought against the Mongols 
in the great battle of the Kalka, 31 May, 1223. Karamsin says Daniel 
only undertook this journey to Batu's camp in order to deceive him, 
and inspire the Mongols with confidence in him, the better to be able 
to prepare means for delivering his country from their yoke. It was 
for this purpose also that he sought the aid of the Church of Rome, 
and expressed the wish to march against the Mongols under the 
Papal flag. Pope Innocent IV gave him the title of King of Gallicia ; 
but Daniel informed him that he wanted troops, not a title. Nego- 
tiations were finally broken off between Rome and Daniel in 1249 
(Karamsin, iii, 288, 323, iv, 21, et seq.). 

^ Conf. Rubruck's remarks, 218, 396. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 3 

been ^iven us in charity, so that we should not be in want 
and for use on our journey, we bought some skins of 
beavers and of some other animals. Duke Conrad, the 
Duchess of Cracow,^ some knights and the bishop of 
Cracow, hearing of this, gave us some more of these skins. 
Furthermore Duke Conrad, his son, and the Bishop of 
Cracow besought most earnestly Duke Vassilko to help 
us as much as he could in reaching the Tartars ; and he 
replied that he would do so willingly. 

III. So he took us with him to his country; and as he 
kept us for some days as his guests that we might rest a 
little, and had called thither his bishops at our request, 
we read them the letters of the Lord Pope, in which he 
admonished them to return to the unity of holy mother 
Church ; we also advised and (736) urged them as much as 
we could, as well the Duke as the Bishops, and all those 
who had met there, to that same end. But as at the very 
time when this duke had come to Poland, his brother, 
Duke Daniel, had gone to Bati and was not present, they 
could not give a final answer, but must wait his return 
before being able to give a full reply. 

IV. After that the Duke sent one of his servants with 
us as far as Kiew.^ Nevertheless we travelled ever in 
danger of our lives on account of the Lithuanians, who 
often committed undiscovered outrages as much as pos- 
sible in the country of Ruscia, and particularly in these 
places through which we had to pass ; and as the greater 
part of the men of Ruscia had been killed by the Tartars 
or taken off into captivity, they were unable to offer them 



^ The duchess was called Grimislawa, the duke's son, Lesko 
(d'Avezac, 482). Furs were used as currency in Russia at the time ; see 
Rubruck, 329. 

- On the Dnieper. It had been captured by Batu in 1238, when 
nearly the whole population was massacred and the city totally de- 
stroyed (Karamsin, iv, 10, et seq.). 

B 2 



4 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

the least resistance ;^ we were safe, however, from the 
Ruthenians on account of this servant. Thence then, by 
the grace of God having been saved from the enemies of 
the Cross of Christ, we came to Kiew, which is the 
metropolis of Ruscia. And when we came there we took 
counsel with the Millenarius,^ and the other nobles who 
were there, as to our route. They told us that if we took 
into Tartary the horses which we had, they would all die, 
/or the snows were deep, and they did not know how to 
dig out the grass from under the snow like Tartar 
horses, nor could (737) anything else be found (on the 
way) for them to eat, for the Tartars had neither straw nor 
hay nor fodder. So, on their advice, we decided to leave 
our horses there with two servants to keep them ; and we 
had to give the Millenarius presents, that he might be 
pleased to give us pack-horses and an escort. Before we 
reached Kiew, when in Danilov^ I was ill to the point ot 
death ; but I had myself carried along in a cart in the 
intense cold through the deep snow, so as not to interfere 
with the affairs of Christendom. 

V. Having settled then all these matters at Kiew, on the 
second day after the feast of the Purification of Our Lady 
(February 4, 1246), we started out from Kiew for other 
barbarous peoples, with the horses of the Millenarius and 
an escort. We came to a certain town which was under 
the direct rule of the Tartars and is called Canov ;* the 
prefect of the town gave us horses and an escort as far as 
another town in which was a certain Alan prefect who was 



^ Conf. Rubruck's remarks, 247. 

2 In Mongol iningatan, 

^ There are several places called Danilowand Danilowkain Russia, 
but I do not find any at the present time on the route between Vladi- 
mir and Kiew. 

* The present town of Kaniew on the Dneiper, about 75 miles 
below Kiew. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 5 

called Micheas,^ a man full of all malice and iniquity, (738) 
for he had sent to us to Kiew some of his body-guard, who 
lyingly said to us, as from the part of Corenza,^ that we 
being ambassadors were to come to him ; and this he 
did, though it was not true, in order that he might extort 
presents from us. When, however, we reached him, he 
made himself most disagreeable, and unless we promised 
him presents, would in no wise agree to help us. Seeing that 
we would not otherwise be able to go farther, we promised 
to give him some presents, but when we gave him what 
appeared to us suitable, he refused to receive them unless ^ 
we gave more ; and so we had to add to them according 
to his will, and something besides he subtracted from us 
deceitfully and maliciously. 

VI. After that we left with him on the second day of 
Quinquagesima (19th February), and he led us as far as 
the first camp* of the Tartars, and on the first Friday after 
Ash Wednesday (23rd February), while we were stopping 
for the night as the sun went down, the Tartars broke in 
on us in arms in horrible fashion asking who we were. 
We answered them that we were envoys of the Lord Pope, 
and then, having accepted some food from us, they left at 
once. Starting again at morn, we had only gone a little 
way when their chiefs who were in the camp came to us, 
and inquired of us why we came to them, and what was 
our business. W^e answered them that we were the envoys 
of the Lord Pope, who was the lord and father of Chris- 
tians ; that he had (739) sent us to the King as well as 
to the princes and all the Tartars, because he desired that 



^ Conf. what Benedict says of him, infra^ 34. Micheas' Mongol 
title was probably Daruga. 

2 The name of this Mongol general is variously written Choranza, 
Curoniza, and Karancha. 

3 Custodia. Rubruck uses the word herbergia in the same sense. 
This " first camp " is the same that Benedict {infra^ 34) states they 
reached three days after leaving Brother Stephen of Bohemia. 



6 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

^11 Christians should be friends of the Tartars and at peace 
with them. Moreover, as he wished that they should be 
mighty with God in heaven, he, the Lord Pope, advised them 
as well through us as by his letters, that they should become 
Christians and receive the faith of Our Lord Jesus Christ, 
for otherwise they could not be saved. He told them 
furthermore that he was astonished at the slaying of 
human beings done by the Tartars, and especially of 
Christians and above all of Hungarians, Moravians and 
Poles, who were his subjects, when they had injured them 
in nothing nor attempted to injure them ; and as the Lord 
God was gravely offended at this, he cautioned them to 
abstain henceforth from such acts, and to repent them of 
those they had done. Furthermore we said^ that the 
Lord Pope requested that they should write to him what 
they would do and what was their intention ; and that 
they would give answer to him to all the above points in 

/their letters. Having heard our motives, and understood 
and noted them down, they said that, in view of what we 
had said, they would give us pack-horses as far as Corenza, 
and supply, a guide ; and at once they asked for presents 
(740), which we gave them, for we must needs do their 
will. 

Vn. Having given them the presents, and taken as pack- 
horses some from which they got off, we started under 
their guidance for Corenza ; but they sent ahead a swift 
messenger to this chief with what we had told them. This 
chief is lord of all those (Tartars) who are encamped 
facing the peoples of the West, lest they suddenly and 
unexpectedly attack them. This chief has under him, we 
were told, sixty thousand armed men. When we reached 
him, he made us put our tents far from him,^ and sent us 



1 This again happened at Batu's camp, see infra^ 9. Friar Ascelin 
vwas treated in like manner at the camp of Ilchikadai in 1249. 



TO T}IE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 7 

his slave stewards^ who asked us with what (741) we wanted 
to bow to him, that is to say whether we would make him 
presents. We replied that the Lord Pope had not sent 
any presents, for he was not sure we could reach them ; 
and that furthermore we had had to pass through very 
dangerous places, exposed to the Lithuanians, who make 
raids along the roads from Poland to near the Tartars, 
over which we had had to travel ; but nevertheless with 
what we were carrying with us, by the grace of God and 
of our Lord the Pope, and for our personal use, we would 
show him our respect as well as we could. But when we 
had given him a number of things, they were not enough 
for him, and he asked for more through intermediaries, 
promising to have us conducted most honourably if we 
complied with his request, which we had to do since we 
wished to live and carry out satisfactorily the order of the 
Lord Pope. 

VIII. Having received the presents they led us to his 
orda or tent, and we were instructed to bend three times the 
left knee before the door of his dwelling, and to be very 
careful not to put our feet on the threshold of the door ; 
and this we were attentive to observe, for sentence of death 
is on those who knowingly tread upon the threshold of a 
chiefs dwelling.^ After we had entered we were obliged 
to repeat on bended knee before the chief and all the other 
nobles (742), who had specially been convened there for 
that purpose, what has been previously said. We pre- 
sented to him also the letters of the Lord Pope ; but as 
our interpreter, whom we had brought with us from Kiew, 
was not able to translate them for him, nor was there any 
one else competent to do so, they could not be interpreted. 
After this, horses were given us, and three Tartars, two of 



Servos suos procuratores. I presume they were Christian, pro- 
bably Russian, slaves. 
^ .See Rubruck's narrative, 319. 



8 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DECARPINE 

whom were chiefs over ten, and the other a man {homo) of 
Bati, guided us with all speed to that latter chief. This Bati 
is more powerful than all the other Tartar princes save 
the Emperor, whom he is held to obey. 

IX. We started (for Bati's camp) on the Monday after 
the first Sunday of Quadragesima (26th February), and 
riding as fast as horses could go trotting, for we had fresh 
horses three or four times nearly every day, we rode from 
morning to night, and very often even at night, and it was 
not before Wednesday in Holy Week (4th April) that we 
could get to him.^ We crossed the whole country of the 
Comans, which is all a plain, (743) and has four great 
rivers. The first is called the Neper, along which, on the 
side of Ruscia, roams Corenza, and on the other side through 
those plains, Mauci, who is mightier than Corenza. Secondly, 
the Don, along which roams a certain prince called Catan, 
who has as wife Bati's sister. The third is the Volga, a very 
big river, along which goes Bati.'^ The fourth is called 
Jaec, along which go two Millenarii, one along one side of 
the river, the other along the other. All these (chiefs) 
descend in winter time to the sea, and in summer go up 
the courses of these rivers to the mountains. Now this 
sea is the Mare-Magnum from which goes out the arm of 
Saint George which goes to Constantinople. We went 
along for many days on the ice on the Neper. These rivers 

1 The mission left Kiew on February 4th, 1246, reached Corenza's 
camp on or near the west bank of the Dnieper somewhere about the 
22nd, and probably crossed the river between Yekaterinoslaw or 
Alexandrwsk, where it makes a south-westerly bend. 

^ Friar John is the first western writer to call the Dnieper, Don, and 
Volga by these names ; even Rubruck does not use them. This is 
explained by the fact that the former had a Russian interpreter, 
accustomed, like all his countrymen, to use these terms ; the latter 
got his information from the Mongols, and where that failed used 
the classical terms. Mauci appears to be the Mauchy of Abulghazi ; 
he was the second son of Chagatai. Catan is, I think, the same as 
Rubruck's Scatai. He must not be confounded with Katan, mentioned 
in a subsequent passage. Conf also Benedict's narrative, infra^ 
P- 34- 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 9 

are big, very full of fish, especially the Volga, and they 
fall into the sea of Greece which is called Mare-Magnum. 
We went for many days along the shore of this sea, which 
on account of the ice was very dangerous in several places. ; 
for it freezes along the coast quite three leagues out.^ But 
(744) before we came to Bati, two of our Tartars went 
ahead to tell him all we had said at Corenza's. 

X. When then we came to Bati on the borders of 
the Comans' country, we were made to camp a good league 
from their tents,^ and before we were taken to his court 
we were told we would have to pass between two fires, 
which we refused to do under any consideration. But 
they told us : " Fear not, we only make you pass between 
these two fires lest perchance you think something injurious 
to our lord, or if you carry some poison, for the fire will 
remove all harm." We answered them : " Since it is thus 
we will pass through, so that we may not be suspected of 
such things." When we came to the orda we were ques- 
tioned by his procurator, who is called Eldegai, as to what 
we wanted to make our obeisance with, that is to say, what 
gifts we desired to give him ; we answered him as we had 
previously answered Corenza, that the Lord Pope had sent 
no presents, but that we ourselves, of those things which 
we had by the grace of God and the Lord Pope for our 



^ D'Avezac (485) justly remarks : "We may feel surprise at the geo- 
graphical ignorance of the friar, who, though he might have known 
the truth by the testimony of his own eyes, remained imbued with 
ancient errors, and confounds in a single sea the Pontus, the Palus 
Maeotis, the Caspian sea, or sea of the Khazars, and also the great 
lake of Aral." Rubruck's geographical knowledge was much superior 
on all these points. He does not mention the Aral lake, and may 
have taken it to be part of the Caspian ; I am inclined to think, 
however, that he passed some distance north of it. 

* Stationes^ which the friar says (616) were ^^ rotundas in 7nodum 
ientorii" In another part of his work (770) Friar John says that he 
found at Batu's camp the son of the Duke of Yaroslaw, who had with 
him a Russian knight called Sangor, a Coman by birth, but then a 
Christian. The friar's interpreter at Batu's camp was a Russian 
from Susdal. 



lO JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

expenses, desired to show him our respect as best we 
could. Presents having been given and accepted, the 
procurator called Eldegai questioned us as to our coming ; 
and to him we gave the same reasons as we had previously 
given to Corenza. 

(745) XI. Having been informed of our reasons, they 
led us into the dwelling, after having made a bow, and 
heard the caution about the threshold, which has been men- 
tioned. Having entered then we said what we had to say 
on bended knees, and then we presented him the letters 
(of the Pope), and requested that interpreters be given us 
able to translate them. These were gjven us on Good 
Friday (6th April), and we carefully translated the letters 
into the Ruthenian, Saracenic, and Tartar languages, and 
this latter interpretatiori was given to Bati, who read it 
and noted it carefully. After that we were taken back to 
J our dwelling, but no food was given us, save once on the 
night of our arrival a little millet in a bowl. 

XH. This Bati holds his court right magnificently, for 
he has door-keepers and all the other officials like unto their 
Emperor. He sits also in a raised place, as on a throne, 
with one of his wives ; but every one else (of his family), 
as well his brothers and his sons as others of lesser degree, 
sit lower down on a bench in the middle (of the tent). All 
the other people sit behind them on the ground, the men 
to the right, the women to the left. He has tents made of 
linen {pannis lineis). (746) They are large and quite hand- 
some, and used to belong to the King of Hungary. And 
no outsider save a servant dare enter the tent, no matter 
how great and mighty he may be, unless he is called, unless 
perchance he knows he is wanted. When we had stated 
our object, we took a seat to the left,^ for thus dDall 



y With the women, placing them in a position of inferiority ; t 
women sat on the right of the chief, the traveller's left when facii 




i 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 1 1 

ambassadors in going, but on coming back from the 
Emperor they always placed us on the right. In the 
middle of the dwelling near the door is a table, on which 
is placed drink in gold and silver vases ; and Bati never 
drinks, nor does any prince of the Tartars, especially when 
they are in public, without there being singing and guitar 
playing. And when he rides out, there is always carried 
over his head on a pole an umbrella or little awning ; and 
all the very great princes of the Tartars do likewise. This 
Bati is kind enough to his own people, but he is greatlyy^ 
feared by them. He is, however, most cruel in fight ; he 
is very shrewd and extremely crafty in warfare, for he has 
been waging war for a long time. 

XIII. On Holy Saturday (7th April) we were called to 
his tent and that same procurator of Bati's came out to us, 
and told us from him that we were to go to the Emperor 
Cuyuc in their country, and that some (747) of our party 
would . be kept there (with Bati) in the expectation 
that they would want to send them back to the Lord 
Pope. We gave them letters concerning all we had 
done to carry back (to the Pope), but when they 
had got as far as Mauci, he detained them until our 
return. As for ourselves, on the day of the Resur- 
rection of the Lord (8th April), having said mass and 
settled everything, accompanied by the two Tartars who 
had been detailed to us at Corenza*s, we started out most 
tearfully, not knowing whether we were going to life or"^ 
'death.^ We were furthermore so feeble that we could 
hardly ride ; during the whole of that lent our only food 
had been millet with salt and water ; and likewise on the 



him. The left side of the host is the place of honour in China, 
but not so in Mongolia and Tibet, where guests sit to the right of 
the host. 

^ Benedict {infra^ 35) says they started on Tuesday after Easter, 
'>., loth April. 



12 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

Other fast days ; nor had we anything else to drink but 
snow melted in the kettle. 

XIV. Comania hath to the north of it, immediately 
after Ruscia, the Morduins, the Bilers, or great Bulgaria, 
the Bascarts or great Hungary ; after the Bascarts, the 
Parrosits (748) and the Samogeds, after the Samogeds those 
who are said to have dog-faces, who live in the deserts 
along the coasts of the Ocean. To the south it (/>., 
Comania) has the Alans, the Circasses, the Gazars, Greece 
and Constantinople ; also the land of the Ibers, the Cachs, 
the Brutaches, who are said to be Jews and who shave their 
heads, the country of the Zicci, of the Georgians and of 
the Armenians, and the country of the Turks.^ To the 
west it has Hungary and Ruscia. And this country (of 
Comania) is extremely long, for we v.'ere riding through 
it at great speed, having every day fresh horses, five or 
seven times a day, except, as I have said, when we were 
riding through desert tracts when we got better and 
stronger horses (749) able to stand more work, and we 



^ The Bilers are the Belar of mediaeval Mahommedan writers, the 
Bulgars of the Volga (d'Avezac, 490) ; Schiltberger (49) speaks of 
the city of Bolar. The country of the Bascarts is Rubruck's Pascatir; 
Friar John uses the Russian form of the name, BashkurL The 
Parossits are the Borassyts of Edrisi, the Permiaks of modern writers 
(d'Avezac, 492). The Samogeds are the Samoyeds, the inhabitants 
of "the country of darkness" of Mohammedan mediieval writers; 
Rubruck refers to them (266), but does not name them. Friar John, 
in another part of his work (678), says " the Samogeds live by the 
chase, and make their dwellings and clothing of the skins of animals." 
The dog-faced people, or CynocephalcE^ as Benedict {infra^ 36) calls 
them, are a classical reminiscence (see infra^ 36, and d'Avezac, 493). 
King Heythum of Armenia speaks of a country beyond Khatai, 
where the men were shaped like dogs (Dulaurier, 472). On the Alans| 
Circasses (or Kerkis) and Gazars, see infra, ^2, note i. On the Ibers, 
or Georgians, see infra, 46. In another passage of his work (709) 
* Plan de Carpine identifies the Georgians with the Obesi, the Abazes 
or Abkhases (d'Avezac, 497). Friar John's Cachs appear to be the 
people of Kakhethi in Georgia (d'Avezac, 495). The Brutaches may 
be the inhabitants of the Berdagj of mediaeval Mohammedan writers 
(d'Avezac, 496). Rubruck refers (382) to Jews living in this district. 
On the Zicci, a western branch of the Cherkess, see infra, 45, 
note 4. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 13 

kept this up from the beginning of lent to the eighth day 
after Easter (i6th April).^ The Tartars killed these 
Comans ; some fled from before them, and others were 
reduced to slavery. Most of those who fled have come 
back to them. 

XV. After that we entered the country of the Cangitae,- 
which in many places suffers from a great scarcity of 
water, and in which but few people remain on account of this 
deficiency of water. And so it happened that the men of 
leroslav, Duke of Ruscia, who were going to join him in 
the country of the Tartars, lost some of their number who 
died of thirst in this desert. In this country and also in 
Comania, we found many human skulls and bones scattered 
about on the ground like cattle-dung.^ We travelled 
through this country (of the Cangitae) from the eighth 
day after Easter to nearly the Ascension of our Lord.* 
These people are pagans, and the Comans as well as 
the Cangitae do not till the soil, but only live on the 
produce of their animals ; nor do they build houses, but 
live in tents. The Tartars have also annihilated them, and 
now occupy their country ; those of them who were left 
they have reduced to slavery. 

XVI. Leaving the country of the Cangitae we entered 
that of the Bisermins.^ These (750) people used to speak the 



^ Benedict {infra^ 35; says it only took them two weeks to ride 
through Comania, but he counts merely from the time they left Batu's 
camp. To this we must add the '' five weeks and more " he says 
they took to ride from the Dnieper to Batu's camp, near Sarai, on the 
Volga. The two narratives agree perfectly. 

2 Rubruck (274) calls them Cangle, and says they were Comans. 
Benedict uses the same name for them as John. 

3 Conf. the Constable of Armenia's remarks in Introductory Notice, 
supra. 

* I.e.y from the i6th April, 1246, to the middle of May : Ascension 
day falling that year on the 17th May. 

'° Bisermin is a corrupt form of Mussulman. P^u-su-?nan kuo^ 
" country of the Pusuman," occurs in Chinese works of the Mongol 
period. In the Russian annals the name Bussurman is also found 
(Bretschneider, J/^^. TraveL,^"^ ; also his il/-?^. Geog.^ 120). D'Avezac, 



14 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

Coman language, and do still speak it ; but they hold the 
religion of the Saracens. We found in that country in- 
numerable ruined cities, overthrown villages, and many de- 
serted towns. There is a great river in that country whose 
name 1 do not know, and on which stands a city called 
lanckint, and also another called Barchin, and still another 
called Ornas, and many more whose names I do not 
know.^ This country used to have a lord who was called 



(523) thinks Friar John used it to designate Turkestan ; it seems to me, 
however, that he appHes it more particularly to the Khorazmian 
empire. Benedict {infra,, yj) calls this country Turkya (/>., Turkestan). 
He says they travelled through it for ten days, or roughly 350 miles. 
Anthony Jenkinson (79) uses the word Bussannans to designate the 
Moslem, and says it means circumcised. See also infra,^ p. 48, note 3. 
^ The *• great river" is the Syr daria. The traveller must have followed 
it up from its mouth to perhaps Chimkent, which may be the town of 
Leinfinc he mentions in another part of his work (771). D'Avezac, 
(512) and Bretschneider {Med. Geog.^ 135) identify lanckint with 
Yenguikend^ and Barchin with the Pa-erh-chen of the Chinese, the 
Barkhalikend of the Persians. As to Ornas, Fraehn {Ibn Fozlan^ 162) 
thinks it is Urghendj ; d'Avezac, (505-511) tries to prove that it was 
the ancient Tanais, the mediaeval Tana at the mouth of the Don. I 
accept as much more probable Bretschneider's suggestion {Med. Geog.^ 
236) that it was Otrar, the ruins of which famous place have been 
found on the right bank of the Syr daria, to the east of Fort Perowsky. 
In another part of his work (672-674), Friar John says that after 
the election of Ogodai as Emperor, Batu was sent against the Alti- 
Soldan and the country of the Bisermins {i.e.^ the Khorazm Shah and 
the Khorazmian empire). In the latter country "a certain city called 
Barchin resisted them for a long time. . . . But the people of another 
city called lanckint hearing {(^{ the capture of Barchin), went out and 
surrendered themselves into his hands, and so their city was not 
destroyed. . . . And then they(/>., the Mongols) marched against 
a city called Ornas (also written in some MSS. Orfiac and Orpar\ and 
this city was a very populous one, for there were there not only many 
(kinds of) Christians — Gazars, Ruthenians, and Slavs, and others — 
but also Saracens, and these latter had dominion over the city. And 
this city was full of riches, for it is situated on a river which flows by 
lanckint and the land of the Bisermins, and which flows into a sea (or 
lake, mare\ so it is as it were a (sea) port, and all the other Saracens 
had a very great market in that city. And as (the Mongols) could 
not capture it otherwise, they cut the river which flowed by the town, 
and flooded it with all its things and people." It is quite true that these 
details of the siege of Ornas agree with what Mohammedan writers 
tell us of the siege of Urghendj by the Mongols in 1221 (see d'Ohsson,- 
ii, 265, et seq.)^ and for that matter with what Vincent of Beauvais 
(bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxix) says of the siege of Bagdad in 1258 ; but the siege 
of Otrar in 12 19 was also one of the longest and most difficult the 
Mongols had undertaken in this famous campaign, and the inundating 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. I 5 

the Great Soldan,^ and he was put to death by the Tartars 
with all his progeny, but I am ignorant of his name. The 
country has very high mountains ; to the south of it is 
Jerusalem, Baldach, and the whole country of the Saracens. 
Near its borders are stationed the chiefs Burin and Cadan, 
who are uterine brothers.^ To the north of it is a part of 
the country of the Black Kitayans and an Ocean, and in 
that quarter is stationed Sitan, a brother of Bati.^ We 
travelled through this country from the feast of the Ascen- 
sion (17th May) to about eight days before the feast of 
Saint John the Baptist (24th June). 

(751) XVII. After that we entered the country of the 
Black Kitayans, in which they {i.e., the Mongols) have 
built anew, as it were, a city called Omyl, in which the 
Emperor has erected a house where we were invited to 
drink ; and he who was there on the part of the Emperor 



of Urghendj may have been done on account of the success of this 
expedient in the siege of Ornas. As to the identity of Ornas with Tana, 
we have no knowledge even that the latter place existed in the thir- 
teenth century ; in fact, we learn from Rubruck that in his time 
the trade of the Sea of Azow was carried on at Matriga, and that only 
small flat boats went to the mouth of the Don for fish and salt. Had 
any trading port existed there at the time, he would surely have men- 
tioned it. The Russian bishop Peter (1245) speaks of a very great 
city called Emac, or Ornachi., which had been captured by Batha- 
tarcan (Matth. Paris, Op. cit., iv, 387). Mohammedan mediaeval 
writers say that Juchi in 1219 captured Ozkend, Barkhalikend and 
Eschnars (d'Ohsson, i, 222). It is just possible that Eschnars, where- 
ever it was on the Syr daria, is Peter's Ernasox Ornacht^ and that this 
place is the same as Friar John's Ornas and Benedict's {itifra^ 36) 
Ornarum, Sir John Maundevile (255) refers to the city of Octorar. 

^ Altisoldanus : in some MS. Altisoldam and Alti-Soldanus. I have 
followed d'Avezac (504) in translating it as if it were Altus Soldanus. 
The Sultan here referred to is Alayeddin Mohammed. According to 
Mohammedan writers, he died a fugitive from the Mongols, in a little 
island in the Caspian, in 1220 (d'Ohsson, ii, 255). 

* Burin is the same as Rubruck's Buri ; Kadan, according to 
Rashideddin, was not a son of Chagatai, as Friar John states (666), 
but of Ogodai (d'Avezac, 584). 

3 Sitan is the Schiban of Mohammedan writers. Friar John (666) 
says that he and Batu were sons of Tossuc-can, by which name he 
designates Juchi, the eldest son of Chingis. 



l6 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

made the nobles of the town and also his own two sons 
clap their hands before us (when we drank).^ Leaving 
this place we found a not very large lake, and as we did 
not ask its name, we do not know it. On the shore of this 
lake was a little hill, in where there is said to be an opening, 
whence in winter there issue out such great tempests of 
wind that people can barely and at great danger pass by.^ 
In summer, however, though one always hears the sound 
of the winds, but little comes out of the opening, according 
to what the inhabitants told us. We travelled along the 
shore of this lake for several days ; it has several islands 



1 Conf. Rubruck, 225. The original town of Imil, on the river which 
still bears that name, and which flows into the Ala Kul, passing south 
of the town of Chuguchak, was built by the Kara-Khitai somewhere 
about 1 125. Imil was Kuyuk's appanage {ulus) (Bretschnieder, Med. 
Geog.y 109, 221, 305). In another passage (648), Friar John says that 
Ogodai rebuilt the city. He adds that *' to the south of it lies a great 
desert (evidently the Takla-makan), in which it is credibly asserted 
that wild men live. They have no speech, nor joints in their limbs. 
If they fall down they cannot get up without assistance. They have, 
however, enough instinct {discretionem) to make felt of camels' (wild 
camels ?) wool, with which they clothe themselves and make shelters 
against the wind. If any Tartars chase them and wound them with 
arrows, they put grass in the wound and flee swiftly before them." 
The presence of wild men somewhere in the deserts of Central Asia 
has been reported by many travellers, from Heythum, of Armenia, to 
Sir Douglas Forsyth and P. K. Kozlofif, of Roborowsky's expedition in 
1893-95. The latter heard of them living in the valley of the Urungur 
(not far from Omyl, by the way) — see Rockhill, Land of the Lamas^ 
150, 256 ; also \i\%Diary^ 144, and Geog. Jour.^ ix, 554. Chinese annals 
of the sixth century make mention of a race or tribe called K'o-lan, 
living probably between Sa-chou and the Lob nor, which they describe 
as the most degraded and unsightly of all savage tribes. They could 
not distinguish colours or sounds ; they were stupid and weak, knew 
not how to fight, or even quarrel ; in every respect they were like 
brute beasts (MaTuan-lin, bk. 334, 4). 

2 Either the traveller's memory served him badly, or else the text 
is here wrong. The lake, it would seem, is the Ala Kul, and the wind, 
that which blows through the Ala Tau coming from the Ebi nor and the 
desert beyond (see note to p. 294 of Rubruck). If this be the case, he 
cannot have come to the lake after leaving Omyl, but must have passed 
it before getting there, or else he passed it on his return journey. If 
the text is at fault, the only correction necessary would be to change 
the first word " leaving," and read " before reaching." That he passed 
the Ala Kul on his way east, seems clear from the fact that he states, a 
few lines further on, that he travelled along it, " having it on his left," 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 1 7 

in It, and it lay upon our left hand. This country has great 
abundance of streams, not large ones, however ; on either 
bank of these rivers are woods, but of no great width.^ Ordu 
lives in this country f he is older than Bati, in fact, older 
than any (752) of the other chiefs of the Tartars, and the 
orda or court is that of one of his wives who rules over it. 
For it is a custom among the Tartars that the courts of 
their princes and nobles are not broken up (on their death), 
but some women are always appointed who govern them, 
and the same proportion of presents are given them that 
their lord had been in the habit (during his life) of allowing 
them. After this we came to the first orda of the Emperor,^ 
in which was one of his wives ; but as we had not yet seen 
the Emperor they would not invite us nor let us come into 
her orda, though they had us well served in our own tent, 
according to Tartar fashion ; and they kept us there for a 
whole day, so that we might rest. 

XVIII. Proceeding thence on the eve of the feast 
of Saint Peter (28th June), we entered the country of 
the Naiman, who are pagans.* On the day of the feast 
of the apostles Peter and Paul (29th June) there fell in that 
place a great snow, and we experienced great cold. This 
country is exceptionally mountainous and cold, and (753) 



^ Conf. what Rubruck says (281) of the country of the Kara-Khitai. 

2 Urda or Orda of Mohammedan writers. Little is said of this 
prince in the works to which I have had access. He took part in the 
great wars in Europe and Asia, and seems to have been a faithful 
adherent of Kuyuk, as it was he who made the report to that Emperor 
on Ujugen's conspiracy to seize the throne before Kuyuk's election 
(d'Ohsson, ii, 194, 203). 

3 This must have been in the I mil country, as the Emperor here 
referred to is clearly the then deceased Ogodai. 

* Rubruck says the Naiman were Christians. Supposing they pro- 
fessed the Uigur creed, which Rubruck states to have been a 
jumble of Manicha^ism and Buddhism, with perhaps a slight tinge of 
Nestorianism, they might be classed among his idolaters (as he, in 
fact, sometimes does the Uigurs), or among Christians. Conf Ney 
Elias {Tarikht-rashidi, 290), where, translating from Jiwani, he speaks 
of the Naiman as Tarsa, which he renders by *' Christians." 



1 8 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

there is very little plain in it. These two nations^ do not 
till the soil, but like the Tartars live in tents. These latter 
have nearly exterminated them. We travelled through 
this country many days. 

XIX. After that we entered the country of the Mongals, 
whom we call Tartars. And we journeyed through that 
country for three weeks, I think riding hard, and on the 
day of the feast of blessed Mary Magdalen (22nd July) 
we arrived* at Cuyuc's, the present emperor. Along all this 
(part of the) route we travelled very fast, for our Tartars 
had been ordered to take us quickly to the solemn court 
which had already been convened for several years for the 
election of an emperor,^ so that we might be present at it. 
So we had to rise at dawn and travel till night without a 
stop ; often we arrived so late that we did not eat at night, 
but that which we should have eaten at night was given us 
in the morning ; and we went as fast as the horses could 
trot, for there was no lack of horses, having usually fresh 
horses during the day, those which we left being sent back, 
as I have stated previously ; and in this fashion we rode 
rapidly along without interruption. 



II. 

Concerning the arrangement of the Emperor's court and of 
his princes. 

(754) I. When we reached Cuyuc's camp, he caused us to 
be given a tent and allowances such as the Tartars are in 
the habit of giving ; but they treated us better than they did 
the other ambassadors. We were not called (before Cuyuc) 
however, for he had not yet been elected, nor had they 



^ 7.6'., the Kara-Khitai and the Naiman. 

'^ Ogodai died in 1241, but the parliament {kuriliai) which elected 
Kuyuk only met in the spring of 1246 (d'Ohsson, ii, 195, et seq.). 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. I9 

settled about the succession ; the translation of the letters 
of the Lord Pope, and what else we had said (to Corenza 
and Batu), had been sent him by Bati. And when we had 
been there five or six days, he sent us to his mother,^ where 
the solemn court was being held. When we got there 
they had already erected a great tent (755) made of white 
purple, which in our opinion was large enough to hold 
more than two thousand persons ; and around it a wooden 
paling had been made, and it was ornamented with divers 
designs. 

On the second or third day we went with the Tartars 
who had been assigned to guard us (to this tent) ; and all 
the chiefs met there, and each one was riding around in a 
circle over hill and dale with his men. On the first day 
they were all dressed in white purple ; on the second day, 
and then it was that Cuyuc came to the tent, they were 
dressed in red (purple); on the third day they were all in blue 
purple, and on the fourth day in the finest baldakins.^ In 
the paling near the tent were two big gates : one through 
which only the Emperor could pass, and at which there 
was no guard though it was open, for no one would dare 
to go in or out by it ; and the other way by which all 
those who had admittance went in, and at this one were 
guards with swords, bows and arrows, and if anyone came 
near the tent outside of the set bounds, he was beaten if 
caught, or shot at with headless arrows if he ran away. 
The horses were kept at about two arrow-flights, I should 
say, from the tent. The chiefs went about every w^here with 
a number of their men all armed ; but nobody, unless a chief, 
could go to the horses, without getting badly beaten for 



^ The Empress Turakina, who was Regent from the time of Ogo- 
dai's death to the election of Kuyuk. 

* Conf. Benedict's account {tn/ra, p. 37), and Rubruck (230) ; also 
d'Avezac (524). Purpura may have been a velvet stuff, but its meaning 
remains uncertain. Baldakinus was a silk brocade (Heyd, ii, 697). 

C 2 



20 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

trying to do so. And many (of the horses) there wer^ which 
(756) had on their bits, breast-plates, saddles and cruppers 
quite twenty marks worth of gold^ I should think. And 
so the chiefs held counsel beyond^ the tent, and discussed 
the election, while all the rest of the people were far 
away from the tent. And there they remained till about 
noon, when they began drinking mare's milk, and they 
drank till evening so plentifully that it was a rare sight. 

III. They called us inside (the tent), and gave us mead, 
for we would not drink mare's milk at all ; and this was 
a great honor they showed us ; and they kept on urging 
us to drink, but not being in the habit of it, we could not 
do so, and we let them see that it was distasteful to us, so 
they stopped pressing us. In the great square was the 
duke Jeroslav of Susdal in Ruscia, and several princes of 
the Kitayans and Solanges, also two sons of the King of 
Georgia,^ a soldan, the ambassador of the Calif of Baldach, 
and more than ten other soldans of the Saracens,* I believe, 
and as we were told by the procurators. For there were 
more than four thousand envoys, as well those bringing 
tribute as those offering presents, soldans and other chiefs 
who had come to present themselves (757) in person, those 
who had been sent by their (rulers), and those who 
were governors of countries. All these were put together 
outside the paling, and drink was given to them at the 
same time ; as for ourselves and the duke Jeroslav, when- 
ever we were outside with them they always gave us 
a higher place. I think, if I remember rightly, that we 

^ About ^10 los. of our money. 

^ In/ra, or " outside the paling," in the space reserved for them, 
and which is called a little farther on magnum forwn^ or " great 
square." 

3 These two princes were David, son of Giorgi Lascha, and David, 
son of Queen Rusudan, his cousin. Kuyuk decided that the latter* 
should succeed the former on the throne of Georgia on his deatbt 
(Dulaurier, 451). 

'^ Conf d'Ohsson, ii, 196. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 21 

were at that place for a good four weeks ; and I am under 
the impression that the election was made there, though 
it was not proclaimed. It was for the following reason that 
it was generally believed (that Cuyuc had been chosen) : 
whenever Cuyuc came out of the tent, they sang to him, 
and as long as he remained outside of it they inclined 
before him certain fine staffs on the ends of which were 
(tufts of) red wool, which was done to no other chief 
They called this tent (statio) or court the Sira-Orda.^ 

IV. Coming out of the tent, we all rode together to 
another place some three or four leagues distant, where 
there was a fine large plain near a river flowing between 



^ Simon of St. Quentin (Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxxi, ch. xxxii, 
452a) describes as follows the ceremonial of raising a new Mongol 
emperor to the throne. He did not witness himself such a ceremony, 
and it may well be that he got the details from Benedict the Pole, 
who was back in Asia Minor in 1248, at about the time of the return 
of Ascelin's mission from Baidju's camp (see Introductory Notice). 
" All the Barons being assembled, they placed a gilded seat in their 
midst, and made this Gog (chan, />., Khakan) sit on it, and they put a 
sword before him and said, * We want, we beg, and we command 
that you shall have dominion over all of us.' And he said to them : 

* If you want me to reign over you, are you ready each one of you to 
do what I shall command, to come whenever I call, to go wherever 
1 may choose to send you, to put to death whomsoever I shall com- 
mand you ?' They replied that they were. Then he said to them, 

* My command shall be my sword.' To this they all agreed. They 
then placed a piece of felt on the ground, and put him on it, saying : 

* Look upwards and recognize God, and downward and see the felt 
on which you sit. If you reign well over your kingdom, if you make 
largess, and rejoice in justice, and honour each of your Princes 
according to his rank, you shall reign in glory, all the world shall 
bow to your rule, and God will give you everything your heart can 
desire. But if you do otherwise, you shall be miserable, lowly, and 
so poor that this felt on which you sit shall not even be left you.' 
After saying this, the Barons made the wife of Gog sit on the felt ; 
and with both of them seated there, they lilted them up from the 
ground, and proclaimed them with a loud voice and cries Emperor 
and Empress of all the Tartars" (conf Schiltberger, 48). The Sira 
Orda, Friar John states in another passage (608), was half a day's 
journey from Karakorum. We learn from other sources that it was 
situated at a place called Ormektua. The ernperor Ogodai used to 
pass the summer there (d'Ohsson, ii, 84). The staffs with tufts of 
red wool on the ends were tughs. Baber, i, 217, says the Khan of 
the Mongols in his time had nine tughs. 



22 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

mountains,^ where another tent was set up, and it is called 
by them the Golden Orda : and here it was that Cuyuc 
was to have been placed on the throne on the day of the 
Assumption of our Lady (15th August); but it was 
deferred on account of the hail which fell, to which I have 
referred previously. This tent (758) rested on pillars 
covered with gold plates, fastened with gold nails and other 
woods, and the top and sides of it were covered with balda- 
kins ; the outside, however, being of other kinds of stuff. 
Here we remained until the feast of Saint Bartholomew 
(24th August), when there assembled a great multitude, 
and they all stood with their faces turned to the south, 
some of them a stone's throw from others, going ever 
farther and farther away, making genuflexions towards the 
south. As for us, not knowing whether they were piaking 
incantations or bending their knees to God or what else, 
we would not make any genuflexions.^ After doing this 
for a long while they went back to the tent, and placed 
Cuyuc on the imperial seat, and the chiefs knelt before 
him ; and after that the whole people did likewise, except 
ourselves who were not his subjects. Then they began 
drinking, and as is their custom, they kept on drinking till 
evening. After that they brought in carts of cooked meat, 
without salt, and to each four or five they gave a quarter. 



^ This river must be the Orkhon, unless we identify the Sira Orda, 
or Ormektua, with the modern Urmukhtin, about 60 miles south of 
Kiakhta, on the road to Urga, in which case the river would be the 
Shara ossu. In Mongol, " Golden Orda" is Alian ordu, 

2 As shown in the next paragraph, the friar made the prescribed 
genuflexion to the living emperor. See on this subject in general 
Ainer. Hist. Review^ ii, 42, et seq., 627 et seq. ; also Pauthier, 
Ceremonial ci la Coiir de Khoubilai. It is interesting to note that in 
A.D. 981 the Chinese envoy, Wang Yen-te, sent to the Uigur Prince of 
Kao-chang, refused to make genuflexions {pai) to him, as being con- 
trary to the established usages as regards envoys. The prince and 
his family, however, on receiving the envoy, all faced eastward 
(towards Peking) and made an obeisance {pai) on receiving the 
imperial presents {shou tz'ti) (Ma Tuan-lin, Bk. 336, 13). 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 23 

To those who were inside (the tent) they gave meat and 
salted broth for sauce ; and in this fashion they passed 
days in feasting. 

V. It was at this place (the Golden Orda) that we were t/^ 
called into the Emperor's presence ; after that Chingay^ 
(759) the prothonotary had written down our names and the 
names of those who had sent us, and also those of the chief 
of the Solanges and of the others, he repeated them all, 
shouting with a loud voice before the Emperor and all the 
chiefs. When this had been done each of us had to bend 
the left knee four times,'^ and they cautioned us not to 
touch the threshold, and having searched us carefully for 
knives, and not having found any, we entered the door on 
the east side, for no one dare enter that on the west side 
save the Emperor ; and the same rule applies if it is the 
tent of a chief ; but those of low rank pay little attention to 
such matters. And when we entered his tent, it was the 
first occasion since he had been made Emperor (that he 
had given an audience). He received likewise the ambas- 
sadors, but very few persons entered his tent. Here also 
such great quantities of presents were given him by the 
ambassadors, silks, samites, purples, baldakins, silk girdles 
worked in gold, splendid furs and other things, that it was 
a marvel to see. Here also it was that a kind of umbrella 
or awning (760) that is carried over the Emperor's head 
was presented to him, and it was all covered with precious 
stones.3 Here also a certain governor of a province brought 



^ Chingai was a Uigur ; he had been minister of Ogodai, but 
during the regency of Turakina he was deprived of his office 
(d'Ohsson, ii, 189). 

^ Probably an error for three times. Baber (i, 224) mentions the fact 
of one of his uncles bending the knee nine times before his elder 
brother, but this is very unusual. 

3 One of the insignia of royalty in the East from the earliest times. 
Such umbrellas are called chattra in Sanskrit, chatia or chhatr in 
Hindustani. Ibn Batuta Hii, 228) speaks of a chhatr raised over the 
elephant of the Sultan of Sindh, which was of silk set with precious 
stones, and had a handle of pure gold, 



24 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

to him many camels covered with baldakin and with 
saddles on them, and a kind of arrangement inside of 
which people could sit, I think there were forty or fifty of 
them ; and (he also gave him) many horses and mules 
covered with armour, some of hide, others of iron.^ They 
asked us if we wished to make any presents; but we had 
already used up nearly everything we had, so we had 
nothing at all to give him. It was while here that on a 
hill some distance from the tent there were more than five 
hundred carts, all full of gold and silver and silken gowns, 
all of which was divided up between the Emperor and the 
chiefs ; and the various chiefs divided their shares among 
their men as they saw fit. 

VI. Leaving this place, we came to another where there 
was a wonderful tent, all of red purple, a present of the 
Kitayans. We were taken into it also, and here again when 
we entered they gave us mead or wine to drink, and offered 
us cooked meat, if we wanted it. There was a high platform 
of boards^ in it, on which was the Emperor's throne (76 1):. 
and the throne was of ebony, wonderfully sculptured ; and 
there were also (on it) gold, and precious stones, and, if I 
remember rightly, pearls ; and one went up to it by steps, 
and it was rounded behind. There were benches placed 
around the throne, on which the ladies sat in rows on the 
left side f on the right side no one sat on raised seats, 
but the chiefs sat on seats of lesser height placed in the 
middle (of the tent), and the other people sat behind them 
and the whole day there came there a great concourse of 
ladies. These three tents of which I have spoken* were 



1 On the armour in use among the Mongols, see Rubruck, 381. 

2 Solarium de tabulis. Conf. Rubruck's description of the palace 
at Karakorum. 

3 From this it would seem that the seats occupied by the wives of 
the Emperor were on a level with his throne. Conf., however, 
I^enedict, infra^ p. 38. 

•* The tent of white purple, the Sira Orda, and the Golden Orda. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 2$ 

very big ; but his wives had other tents of white felt, and 
they were quite large and handsome. It was here also that 
they separated : the mother of the Emperor went in one 
direction, the Emperor in another, for the purpose of 
rendering justice. The paternal aunt of the Emperor was y 
in prison, for she had killed his father in the time when 
their army was in Hungary, and it was for this that the 
army had retreated from those countries. She and a 
number of others were tried for this, and put to death.^ 

VII. At this same time Jeroslav, grand-duke in a part 
of Ruscia called Susdal, died at the Emperor's orda. It 
happened that he was invited by the mother of the 
Emperor (to her tent), and she gave him to eat and drink 
with her own hand, as if to honour him ; and he went back 
to his lodgings (762) straightway and fell ill, and after 
seven days he was dead, and all his body became livid in 
strange fashion ; so that everyone believed that he had 
been poisoned, that they might get free and full possession 
of his lands. As an argument in favour of this (suppo- 
sition, the Empress) sent at once, without the knowledge 
of any of her people who were there, an envoy in all haste 
to his son Alexander in Ruscia to come to her, for she 
wished to give him his father's lands ; but he would not 
go, but remained there (at home) ; in the meanwhile (the 
Empress) sent also letters for him to come and receive his 
father's lands. It was believed by all that he would be put 
to death if he should come, or imprisoned perpetually.^ 



^ I cannot trace this story. After Kuyuk's election he had an 
inquiry made into the conspiracy of Ujugen to seize the throne after 
the death of Ogodai. A number of Ujugen's officers were, as a result, 
put to death (d'Ohsson, ii, 203). All accounts agree that Ogodai died 
a natural though sudden death, which overtook him after a hunt and 
a night of drinking. 

'-^ Yaroslaw II, Vsevolodvitch, Grand Duke of Russia, reigned from 
1238 to 1247. He went to the Mongol Court in 1245 or 1246. Karamsin 
(iv, 38) refers to the rumour that he had been poisoned there, but dis- 
misses it as highly improbable. He says that the Duke died on his 



26 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

VIII. It was after this death (of Jeroslav) that our 
Tartars took us to the Emperor, if I remember correctly 
the time ; and when the Emperor heard from our Tartars 
that we had come to him, he ordered us to go back to his 
mother, for he wanted two days after that to unfurl his 
standard against the whole of the western world, as 
was emphatically told us by those who knew, as has 
been previously stated, and he wished us not to know it. 
When we had returned (to the Empress), we remained 
there a few days, when we were sent back again to him ; 
and we remained with him for quite a month, in such 
v/hunger and thirst that we were barely able to keep alive, 
for the allowances which they gave the four of us were 
scarcely enough for one ; and we could find nothing to buy, 
the market being too far away. Had not the Lord sent 
us a certain Ruthenian called Cosmas, a goldsmith, and 
a great favourite of the Emperor,^ who helped us a little, 
I verily believe we should have died, unless the Lord 
(763) had helped us in some other way. He showed us 
before putting it in place the throne of the Emperor which 
he himself had made, and also the seal he had manufac- 
tured for him, and he told us the superscription on his 
seal.2 We also learnt many private details {secretd) about 



way back to Russia, and that his body was carried back to Vladimir. 
Alexander did visit the Mongol Court, with his brother Andrew, but 
was lucky enough to get back to Russia in 1249 (Karamsin, iv, 78-80). 
This Alexander is the famous St. Alexander Nevsky. 

^ Rubruck's best friend at the Court of Mangu was the French 
goldsmith, (iuillaume Buchier. 

2 In another passage (715) he says the seal of the Emperor bore 
the words : " God in Heaven, and Cuyuc-Can on earth, Might of 
God. The seal of the Emperor of all men." The letter of Kuyuk to 
Pope Innocent IV begins by ^'' Dei fortitudo Cuyuc Can^ omnium 
hominum imperator^ which in Mongol would be Mongkd Tiingri 
Kuchundur, Kuyuk Khakhan, " By the power of eternal Heaven, 
Kuyuk, Khakhan." This, I take it, was the inscription on the seal, 
which in all probability was written in Mongol and in Chinese seal 
characters (conf. Deveria, Notes d^pigraphie Mongole^ 31, and Sir 
John Maundevile, 231). 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 27 

the Emperor, from those who had come with other chiefs, 
several Ruthenians and Hungarians who knew Latin and 
French, also Ruthenian clerks and others who had been 
with them, some as long as thirty years, in war and in 
other events, and who knew all about them as they under- 
stood the language, having been continually with them 
some twenty, others ten years, more or less. From these 
we were able to learn about everything : they told us most 
freely of all things without our having to question them, for 
they knew of our desire. 

IX. After these things had happened the Emperor sent 
his prothonotary Chingay to tell us to write down what 
we had to say and our business, and to give it to him ; this 
we did, writing down all we had previously said at Bati*s, 
as has been stated above. After an interval of several 
days, he had us again called, and told us, through Kadac, 
the procurator of the whole empire, and in the presence of 
the prothonotaries Bala and Chingay, (764) and of many 
others of his secretaries, to say all we had to say ; and this 
we did right willingly. Our interpreter on that occasion, 
as well as on the other, was Temer, a knight of Jeroslav*s, 
now a clerk with him, and another clerk of the Emperor's.^ 
And he (/.^., Kadac) asked us on the latter occasion if 
there were any persons with the Lord Pope who under- 
stood the written languages of the Ruthenians or Saracens 
or Tartars. We replied that we did not use either the 
Ruthenian, Tartar, or Saracenic writing, and that though 
there were Saracens in the country, they were far distant 
from the Lord Pope. We added that it appeared to us 
the best plan for them to write in Tartar, and to have it 
translated to us, and that we would carefully write it down 



^ In another passage (771) he gives the name of this clerk as 
Dubarlaus, and says he was also in the service of Duke Yaroslaw. 
He also mentions two servants of the Duke's called Jacob and 
Miche]. 



28 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

in our language, taking both the (original) letter and the 
translation to the Lord Pope. On this they left us and 
went back to the Emperor. 

X. On the feast of Saint Martin (nth November) 
we were again summoned, and Kadac, Chingay, Bala 
and several others of the secretaries came to us, and the 
letter was translated to us word for word ; and as we trans- 
lated it into Latin^ they made us explain each phrase, 
wishing to ascertain if we had made a mistake in any word ; 
and when (765) the two letters were written they made 
us read them together and separately for fear we had left 
out anything, and they said to us : " Be sure you understand 
it all, for it must not be that you do not understand every- 
thing, when you have reached such very distant lands." 
And having told them : " We understand it all," they 
re-wrote the letter in Saracenic, so that it might be read to 
the Lord Pope if he could find any one in our part of the 
world able to do so. 

XI. It is the custom of the Emperor of the Tartars 
su never to address in person a stranger, no matter how great 

he may be ; he only listens, and then answers through the 
medium of someone, as I have explained. Whenever 
they explain any business to Kadac, or listen to an answer 
of the Emperor, those who are under him {i.e.^ his own 
subjects), remain on their knees until the end of the speech, 
no matter how great they may be. One may not, for it is 
not the custom, say anything more about any question 
after it is disposed of by the Emperor.^ This Emperor 
has a procurator, prothonotaries and secretaries, and also 
all the other officers for public as well as private affairs, 
except advocates, for they carry out without a murmur all 
judgments according to the Emperor's decision. The 



1 This translation is given in d'Avezac, 594. The letter contains 
nothing of importance or interest. 
* Conf* Rubruck, 360, 396. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 29 

Other princes of the Tartars do in like manner as regards 
those things which pertain to their offices. 

XII. This Emperor may be forty or forty-five years or 
more old ; he is of medium stature, very prudent and 
extremely shrewd, and serious and sedate in his manners ; 
(766) and he has never been seen to laugh lightly or show^^ 
any levity, and of this we were assured by Christians who 
were constantly with him. We were also assured by 
Christians who were of his household that they firmly 
believed that he was about to become a Christian. As 
signal evidence of this he keeps Christian clerks and gives 
them allowances, and he has always the chapel of the 
Christians in front of his great tent, and (these priests) 
chant publicly and openly and beat (a tablet) according to 
the fashion of the Greeks at appointed hours, just like 
other Christians, and though there may be ever so great 

a multitude of Tartars and of other people. And the other 
chiefs do not have this. 

XIII. Our Tartars who were to come back with us told 
us that the Emperor proposed sending his ambassadors 
with us. He wished, however, I think, that w^e should 
ask him to do so, for one of our Tartars, the elder of the 
two, told us to ask it ; but it not seeming to us good that 
they should come, we replied that it was not for us to ask 
it, but that if the Emperor of his own will sent them, we 
would with God's help guide them safely. There were 
various reasons, however, for which it seemed to us inex- ^"^ ^ 
pedient that they should come. The first reason was thatyj/ 

we feared they would see the dissensions and wars among 
us, and that it would encourage them to march against us. 
The second reason was that we feared they were intended 
to be spies. The third reason was that we feared lest 
they be put to death, as our people for the most part 
are arrogant and hasty : thus it was that when the ser- 
vants who were with us {y6^^ at the request of the 



30 JOURNEY OF FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE 

Cardinal Legate in Germany were going back to him in 
Tartar dress, they came near being stoned by the Germans 
on the road, and were forced to leave off that dress.^ 
And it is the custom of the Tartars never to make 
peace with those who have killed their envoys till they 
have wreaked vengeance upon them. The fourth reason 
was that we feared they would carry us off, as was once 
done with a Saracen prince, who is still a captive, unless he 
is dead. The fifth reason was that there was no need for 
their coming, for they had no other order or authority than to 
bring the letters of the Emperor to the Lord Pope and the 
other princes (of Christendom), which we (already) had, 
and we believed that evil might come of it. Therefore it 
pleased us not that they should come. The third day after 
this, which was the feast of Saint Brice (13th November), 
they gave us permission to leave {licentiani) and a letter of 
the Emperor signed with his seal, and then they sent us to 
the Emperor's mother, who gave to each of us a fox-skin 
gown with the fur outside and wadding inside, and also a 
piece of purple — of which our Tartars stole a palm's length 
from each, and also more than half of another piece which 
was given to our servant ; but though it was no secret to 
us, we did not choose to make any ado over it. 



in. 

Concerning the route we travelled in coming back. 

(768) I. So we started on our way back, and we were 
travelling the whole winter, resting most of the time in the 
snow in the desert, save when in the open plain where there 



^ Hugh of Santocaro, the Pope's Legate in Germany, had sent some 
of his servants with the mission to assist it — probably as far as Kiew 
(Wadding, Annales, iii, 119, and d'Avezac, 481). Conf. Rubruck's 
remarks (312) about the danger of allowing Mongol envoys to visit 
Europe. 



TO THE COURT OF KUYUK KHAN. 3 I 

were no trees we could scrape a bare place with our feet ; 
and often when the wind drifted it wc would find (on 
waking) our bodies all covered with snow.^ And so we 
travelled along till we came to Bati, on the Ascension of 
our Lord (9th May), and to him we told what (the 
Emperor) had answered the Lord Pope. He replied that 
he had nothing to ask other than what the Emperor had 
written ; but he said that we must carefully tell the Lord 
Pope and the other lords everything the Emperor had 
written^ Safe conducts having been given us we left him, 
and reached Mauci on the Saturday after the octave of 
Pentecost (2nd June), where were our companions and 
servants who had been detained, and whom we caused to 
be brought back to us. Thence we went to Corenza, who 
again begged presents of us, but not having (anything) 
we gave nothing. He gave us two Comans, who were 
accounted of the Tartars, as far as Kicw (769) in Ruscia.- 
Our own Tartar did not leave us till we had left the last 
Tartar camp. The others who had been given us by 
Corenza led us in six days from the last camp to Kiew. 

n. We reached (Kiew) fifteen days before the feast of 
Saint John the Baptist (9th June). The Kiewians who 
had heard of our arrival all came out to meet us rejoicing, 
and congratulated us as if wc had risen from the dead, and 



^ The only detail concerning the route followed by the mission on 
its return journey is a brief reference (771) to its having passed 
through a town of the Bisennins called Lemfinc. Although I am 
unable to identify this town (it may, however, be Chimkent), it was in 
all probability in the Syr daria valley ; and it seems hkely that the route 
followed from Kuyuk's camp to this point was practically the same as 
in going, and from there to Batu's also very nearly the same : though 
on the 9th May, when the mission arrived at that Prince's camp, he 
may have been somewhat farther north than the neighbourhood of 
Sarai, his winter quarters. 

^ In another passage (771) he notes that he met on the border of 
Comania the Duke Roman (of Russia), then on his way to the Tartars ; 
also the Duke Aloha and the Duke of Cherneglove (Chernigow), who 
accompanied him back through Russia. 



32 FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE. 

SO they did to us throughout Ruscia, Poland and Bohemia.^ 
Daniel and Vassilko his brother received us with great 
rejoicing, and kept us, against our will, for quite eight days ; 
during which time they held counsel between themselves 
and the bishops and other notables about those things on 
which we had spoken to them when on our way to the 
Tartars. And they answered us jointly, saying, that they 
wished to have the Lord Pope for their particular lord and 
father, and the holy Roman Church as their lady and 
mistress, and confirming likewise all they had previously 
transmitted on the matter through their abbot ; and after 
that they sent with us to the Lord Pope their letters and 
ambassadors. 



^ He notes (772) that he met at Kiew a number of Constantinople 
traders who had come there through the Tartar country ; all of them 
were Italians. He mentions among others Michel of Genoa, Manuel 
of Venice, and Nicolas of Pisa. 





NARRATIVE OF 

FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE'S 
MISSION; 

DERIVED FROM AN ORAL STATEMENT OF HIS COMPANION, 

FRIAR BENEDICT THE POLE.^ 




(774) 

N the year of Our Lord one thousand 
two hundred and forty-five, Friar 
John of the order of Minor Friars, and 
of Pian de Carpine, despatched by the 
Lord Pope to the Tartars in company 
with another friar,^ left Lyons in 
France, where the Pope was, on 
Easter day (i6th April), and having arrived in Poland he 
took at Breslau a third friar of the same order, Benedict by 
name, a Pole by nationality, to be the companion of his 
labour and tribulations and to act as his interpreter. 
Through the assistance of Conrad, Duke of the Poles, they 
reached Kiew, a city of Ruscia, now under the dominion of 

1 The text was published for the first time by d'Avezac {op, cit., 
774-779). It was found in MS. No. 2477 of the Colbert Collection 
in the Biblioth^que Nationale at Paris. 

2 Stephen of Bohemia was his name, as we learn from Wadding 
{ScriptoreSy 221). 



34 NARRATIVE OF 

the Tartars. The headman of the city gave them an 
escort for a distance of six days thence to the first camp of 
the Tartars, near the border of Comania.^ 

(775) II. When the chiefs of this camp heard that they 
were envoys of the Pope they asked for and received 
presents from them. Friars John and Benedict, having by 
their order left behind the third friar, who was too feeble, 
also their horses and the servants they had brought with 
them, set out for a second camp on the Tartars' own horses 
and with pack animals provided by them ; and so, after 
changing horses at several camps, they came on the third 
day to the chief of an army of eight thousand men,^ and 
his attendants {ministrt), having asked for and received 
presents, conducted them to their chief Curoniza. He 
questioned them as to the motive of their journey and the 
nature of their business. This having been stated, he gave 
them three of his Tartars, who got them supplied with 
horses and food {expensis) from one army to another, till 
finally they came to a prince, Bati by name, who is one of 
the greatest princes of the Tartars, and the same that 
ravaged Ungaria. 

III. On the route thither they crossed the rivers called 
Nepere and Don. They spent five weeks and more on the 
road, to wit, from the Sunday, Invocavit^ to the Thursday, 
Cenae Domini, on which day they reached Bati,^ finding 
him beside the great river Ethil, which the Ruscians call 
Volga, and which is believed to be the Tanais.* The 



^ Apparently the town governed by the greedy Alan Micheas, 
mentioned by Plan de Carpi ne {supra, p. 4). 

2 Plan de Carpine {supra, p. 5) refers to this camp as " the first camp 
of the Tartars." 

2 The Sunday, Invocabit, is the first Sunday in Lent (26th February, 
1246). Thursday, Coena Domini, is Holy Thursday, i.e., 5th April, 
1246. Friar John says they reached Batu's on the 4th April. 

* All classical geographers believed that the Volga joined the Don 
not far from its mouth, and that the combined streams flowed into the 
sea of Azow. Even Ptolemy appears to have held this view. Conf. 
Rubruck (252) who gives the course of the Volga correctly. 



FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE'S MISSION. 35 

attendants of Bati having asked for and received presents, 
consisting of forty beaver skins and eighty badger skins,^ 
these presents were carried between two consecrated 
fires ; and the Friars were obliged to follow the presents, 
for it is a custom among the Tartars to purify ambassadors 
and gifts by fire. Beyond the fires there was a cart with 
a golden statue of the Emperor, which it is likewise 
customary to worship.^ But the Friars refusing positively 
to worship it, were nevertheless obliged to bow their heads 
(before it). Bati, having heard the letter of the Pope 
{legatione), and examined every word of it, sent them {jy^^ 
after five days, that is to say on the Tuesday after Easter,^ 
together with his letters which he gave to one of their 
own Tartar guides, to the son of the great Emperor,* 
which son's name is Cuyuc Kan, in the fatherland of the 
Tartars. 

IV. Leaving therefore Prince Bati, (the Friars), having 
wrapped their legs with bandages, so as to be able to bear 
the fatigue of riding, left Comania behind after two weeks. 
In this country they found a great deal of wormwood 
{absinciuni)^ for this country was once called Pontus, and 
Ovidius says of Pontus : 

" Tristia per vacuos horrent absinthia camposJ^^ 
While the Friars were travelling through Comania they 



^ Pelles taxorum, 

2 Conf. Plan de Carpine's remarks (620) on the subject. 

2 April loth, 1246. Plan de Carpine (747) states they left Batu's 
camp on April 8th. 

* Ogodai, son of Chingis Khan, died in 1241 ; his son Kuyuk was 
only elected in 1246. 

^ Saksaul, or Anabasis Ammodendron. On the time taken to 
traverse Comania, see supra^ p. 13, note i. Clavijo (104) states that 
he was made to travel day and night in order to reach Timur's court 
more promptly. 

^ Ovid., Epist.^ I, iii. 

I) 2 



36 NARRATIVE OF 

had on their right the country of the Saxi,^ whom we 
beh'eve to be Goths, and who arc Christians ; after them 
the Gazars, who are Christians.^ In this country is the 
rich city of Ornarum,^ which was captured by the Tartars 
by means of inundations of water. After that the Circasses, 
and they are Christians ; after that the Georgians, and they 
too are Christians. Prior to that, while in Ruscia, they 
had the Morduans on their left, and they are pagans, and 
for the most part they shave the backs of their heads. 
After them were the Bylers, and they are pagans ; and 
after that the Bascards, who are the ancient Ungari ; then 
the Cynocephales, who have dogs' heads ; and then the 
Parocitae,^ who have a small narrow mouth, who can 
masticate nothing, but who live on liquids and sustain 
themselves on the odours of meats and fruits. 

^m) V. Qn the border of Comania they crossed a river 
called Jaiac, and there begins the country of the Kangitae. 
They travelled through this for twenty days, and they 
found few people there, but many swamps and vast salt 
marshes and salt rivers,^ which we take to be the Maeotide 



1 The Goths of the Crimea (conf. Rubruck, 219). 

2 Contemporary Mohammedan writers state that the Ghozz or 
Khazar Turks lived to the east of the sea of Tabaristan or Caspian 
(Ibn Khaldun, Not. et extr., xix, i, Pt. 1, 1 56). They may have occupied 
the country around the Lake Aral, which the Kankali (the friars' 
Cangitae or Cafigle) had evacuated in the early part of the thirteenth 
century (d'Ohsson, i, 196). The Khazars were mostly Jews, but 
Christians and Mohammedans were also numerous amongst them. 

3 Pian de Carpine (674) calls it Ornas (see Schuyler, Turkestan^ 
i, 401, and supra., p. 14, note i). 

* Solinus {pp. cit., 207) speaks, on the authority of Megasthenes, of 
a dog-headed people of India, without speech, and also of a people 
which fed solely on the odour of wild apples (conf. PHny vii, 2, 282, 
283 ; McCrindle, Ancictit I?idia, ^2> 5 ^^so supra, p. 12, note ; and 
Schiltberger, 35). The Chinese annals of the sixth century (Liang- 
shu, bk. 54 ; Nan shift, bk. 79) tell of a kingdom of dogs {Kou kuo) 
in some remote corner of north-eastern Asia. The men had human 
bodies but dogs' heads, and their speech sounded like barking. The 
women were like the rest of their sex in other parts of world. 

^ Sa/sas, et flumina salsa. The salt marshes and lakes near the 
river Ural (Jaiac), the largest of which is the Indersky, into which 



FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE'S MISSION. 37 

swamps. For eight days they went through a vast desert, 
barren and sandy. After the country of the Kangitae 
they came to Turkya, where they for the first time^ found 
a big city (called) Janckynt, and they travelled for about 
ten days in this Turkya.^ Now Turkya professes the 
religion of Machomet. After Turkya they entered a country 
called Kara-Kytai, which meaneth Black Kytai ; and these 
people are pagans, and they found no town there. These 
were once the masters of the Tartars.^ After that they 
entered the country of the Tartars on the feast of Mary 
Magdalen. 

VI. They found the Emperor in that country in a great 
tent which is called Syra-Orda, and here they remained for 
four months, and they were present at the election of Cuyuc 
Kan, their Emperor. And the same Friar Benedict the Pole 
told us orally that he and the other friar saw there about 
five thousand great and mighty men, who on the first day 
of the election of the king all appeared dressed in balcjakin ; 
but neither on that day nor on the next, when they 
appeared in white samites, did they reach an agreement. 
But on the third day, when they wore red samites, they 



flow two salt springs. There are some thirty salt lakes in the Ural 
province. The remark that these swamps may be the Maeotide 
swamps is probably the editor's. Benedict and his companion did not, 
however, know of the existence of the Aral, nor did William of 
Rubruck, nor Marco Polo either, for that matter. Friar William 
passed probably a considerable distance to the north of it ; the two 
first-named took it for a part of the Caspian, which in turn they 
believed to be a portion of the Black Sea. 

^ Primo^ /.^., since leaving the right bank of the Dnieper. By 
Turkya we must understand Turkestan. Friar John (680) calls the 
Seldjuk empire of Asia Minor Urum, i.e., Rum. This Turkya he 
calls (672) the country of the Bisermins. 

* The part of Turkestan {Turkya) through which they travelled was 
the valley of the Syr daria. They probably went from near Yengui- 
kend or Yanikent {Janckynt^ Pian de Carpine's lanckint) to near the 
modem town of Turkestan, or perhaps considerably to the east of it 
(see Schuyler, i, 401). 

' This phrase seems to me to show some knowledge on the part of 
Benedict of the story of Unc Khan and Prester John. 



38 NARRATIVE OF 

came to an agreement and made the election. This same 
friar declared also that about three thousand envoys, 
coming from different parts of the world, were present at 
that same court with messages, letters, tribute or presents 
of divers kinds and in great numbers. These same friars, 
who were counted among them, had to put on, (778) as of 
necessity bound, baldakin over their gowns, for no ambas- 
sador may appear in the presence of the chosen and 
crowned sovereign unless he be properly dressed.^ 

VI I. Having been taken into the Syra-Orda, that is to 
say, the tent {static), of the Emperor, they saw him there 
crowned and gorgeous in splendid attire seated on a raised 
dais {tabulatum\ richly ornamented with gold and silver, 
and above it was trellis-work {cancellatuin\ and around the 
edge four separate flights of steps led up to the platform. 
Three of these flights were in front of the dais ; by the 
middle one the Emperor alone goes up or comes down, by 
the two side ones the nobles and others (pass), but by the 
fourth, which is behind (the Emperor), his mother, his wife, 
and his relatives ascend. The Syra-Orda had three 
openings in guise of doors ; the middle one, which far 
exceeded the others in size, was always left without any 
guard, the King alone entering b}^ it. And if anyone else 
should have entered by it, he would have been without a 
doubt put to death. The two other side door's were closed 
with silk (hangings), and had very rigid guards, who 
watched them in arms, and through these everyone else 
passed with signs of reverence for fear of the established 
punishment. 

VIII. On the third day the letter of the Lord Pope was 
carefully listened to and gone over through (the medium of) 
officials and interpreters. After that the Friars were sent 
to the mother of the Emperor, whom they found in another 

^ Rubruck (268) refers to this remark of Benedict. 



FRIAR JOHN OF PIAN DE CARPINE'S MISSION. 39 

locality, seated in like fashion, in a large and most beautiful 
tent. After receiving them with great courtesy and 
friendliness, she sent them back to her son. While they 
were stopping there, they used frequently to have with 
them some of the Georgians living among the Tartars. 
They are quite respected by the Tartars, because they are 
a strong and warlike people. They are called Georgians 
because Saint George aids them in their fights ; and he is 
their patron and they honour him (779) above all other 
saints.^ They use the Greek idiom in their Holy Scrip- 
tures, and they have crosses over their tents and carts. 
The customs of the Greeks are observed in divine service 
among the Tartars. 

IX. The business on which the Friars had come having 
been settled, they took their leave of the Emperor, carrying 
back with them letters of his signed with his seal to the 
Lord Pope ; and they went their way back, travelling 
westward with the ambassadors of the soldan of Babylon,'^ 
who after accompanying them for fifteen days then left 
them and turned southward. The Friars continued on 
their journey westward, and after passing the Rhine at 
Cologne, got back to the Lord Pope in Lyons, and pre- 
sented to him the letters of the Emperor of the Tartars. 



^ Conf. Rubruck (383) where he derives the name from that of the 
river Cur. 

^ The Ayubite Sultan of Egypt, whose capital, Cairo, was then 
called Babylon. 




THE 

JOURNEY TO THE' 

EASTERN PARTS OF THE WORLD, 

OF 

FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK, ^ 

OF THE ORDER OF MINOR FRIARS, 

IN THE YEAR OF GRACE MCCLIII. 



'J 



the most excellent lord and most 
Christian Louis, by the grace of God 
illustrious King of the French, from 
Friar William of Rubruck, the meanest 
in the order of Minor Friars, greetings, 
and may he always triumph in Christ. 
It is written in Ecclesiasticus of the Wise man : " He 
shall go through the land of foreign peoples, and shall try 
the good and evil in all things."^ This, my lord King, 
have I done, and may it have been as a wise man and not 
as a fool ; for many do what the wise man doth, though not 




^ Ecclesiasticus, xxxix, 5. The Vulgate has : " In terram alieni- 
genartim getitiiun pertransiet : bona enim et mala in hominibus 
tentabit^'* whereas our monk has : " In terram alienarwn gentium 
transiet^ bona et mala in omnibus tetnptabity I fancy he quotes here 
from memory, as he does (391) in another passage of the Bible, which 
he also misquotes. 



JOURNEY OF FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 4I 

wisely, but most foolishly ; of this number I fear I may be. 
Nevertheless in whatever way (214) I may have done, 
since you commanded me when I took my leave of you 
that I should write you whatever I should see among the 
Tartars, and you did also admonish me not to fear writing 
a long letter, so I do what you enjoined on me, with fear, 
however, and diffidence, for the proper words that I should 
write to so great a monarch do not suggest themselves 
to me. 

Be it known then to your Sacred Majesty that in the 
year of our Lord one thousand CCLIII, on the nones of May 
(7th May), I entered the Sea of Pontus, which is commonly 
called Mare Majus, or the Greater Sea,^ and it is one 
thousand CCCC miles in length,^ as I learnt from merchants, 
and is divided as it were into two parts. For about the 
middle of it there are two points of land, the one in the 
north and the other in the south. That which is in the 
south is called Sinopolis, and is a fortress and a port of the 
Soldan of Turkia ; while that which is in the north is a 



^ The name Pontus, or Pontus Euxinus, was used by all classical 
authors to designate the Black Sea, and is also found in the early 
Mohammedan writers (Masudi and Edrisi). The earliest use of the 
name " Black Sea" would seem to be in Constantine Porphyrogenitus 
{^De administrandoy 1 52) ; he there refers to it as 2KOT€Lvr] daXda-tnjj 
though throughout the rest of the work he invariably uses the name 
" Pontic Sea" (UovTiKrj SaKda-a-rj), or Pontus (ILovros). Friar Jordanus 
(53) uses the name Mare Nigrum. His Mare Mauruin seems to desig- 
nate the eastern part of the Euxine. Some of the early Arab geo- 
graphers use the name "Sea of Nitoch," and "Sea of the Kliazars." 

* This is greatly in excess of the truth. Hakluyt has " 1008 miles 
in length." The classical writers had very erroneous ideas about the 
size of the Black Sea (see Pliny, iv, 24, and Tchihatcheff, Asie 
Mineure^ i, 34, et seq.). The greatest length of the Black Sea is about 
550 geographical miles, its greatest width about 325 (Rawlinson, 
Herodotus, iii, 65). 

3 Sinopolis, or Sinope, was captured by the Turks in 1215 (Hammer, 
Hist./\, 34). Strabo (xii, 3, 467) says it was a colony of the Milesians. 
The city stood on a rocky peninsula, and had two ports. It was noted 
from early times for its powerful fleet and its tunny-fish {Trrjka^vbcla) 
fisheries (see also Ibn Batuta, ii, 348, and Heyd, i, 298, 551). The 
Seldjuk kingdom of Rum, with its capital at Iconium, comprised most 



42 JOURNEY OF 

certain province now called by the Latins Gazaria/ but 
by the Greeks who inhabit along its sea coast it is called 
Cassaria, which is Cesaria. And there are certain promon- 
tories projecting out into the sea to the south toward 
Sinopolis ; and there are three hundred miles between 
Sinopolis and Cassaria, and so there are seven hundred 
miles from these poipts to Constantinople in length and 
breadth, and seven hundred to the east, which is Hyberia, 
that is to say, the province of Georgia. 

So we made sail for the province of Gazaria, or Cassaria, 
which is about triangular in shape, having on its west side 
a city called Kersona,'^ where Saint Clement was martyred. 



of Asia Minor. It was formed from the Seldjuk empire in 1084, and 
lasted to 1300 (Hammer, op. cit.^ i, w^etseq.). Plan de Carpine (680) 
speaks of ** the soldan of Urum," but nowhere uses the word Turkia. 

^ This name was given to the Crimea, probably in the eighth 
century, on account of the Khazars who then occupied it as part of 
their domain, which extended from north of the Caucasus to the 
Don. This nation, which seems to have been of Turkish stock, 
though some writers say of Finnish, is first mentioned by Priscus in 
A.D. 626. He writes their name *AKaT(ipoi, and 'AKoripoL Menander 
calls them KarCipoi, and Jornandes uses the form Agazirri. The form 
^a^apoi is also used. Rashideddin says that when the descendants 
of Oguz entered Persia, one of their tribes, having fixed its residence 
amidst forests, received the name of Agacheris. Quatrem^re (53) 
identifies the Khazars with the Agacheris, or " Men of the Woods," but 
the latter name would seem to have been applied to many Turkish 
tribes. Pian de Carpine (674) refers to the Khazars as Gazari, 
and Friar Jordanus (54) speaks of "the empire of Osbet (Uzbeg), which 
is called Gatzaria." 

2 The city of Sevastopol. Jornandes (428) says the Scythians 
allowed the Greeks (of Heraclea) to found this town of Chersonesus to 
trade with them. He speaks of the Aulziagri Huns who lived in the 
neighbourhood of Cherson, " where the greedy trader brought the rich 
products of Asia." In the earliest times, as in those of our traveller 
and Ibn Batuta, the export trade of this place consisted principally in 
furs and slaves. Jornandes, in fact, speaks (/^r. cit.) of the Hunuguri 
as noted for the sable skins with which they supplied the market ; the 
" rich products of Asia" referred to above only means the silk and 
other fabrics of western Asia, which were imported into Cherson by the 
Greek traders. The exact nature of the trade at this place may 
probably be determined by what Strabo (xi, 2, 423) states in reference 
to that of the town of Tanais, at the mouth of the Don (Tanais), He 
says that the nomads brought there slaves, furs, and various products 
of native industry, while the Greeks imported principally tissues and 
wine — a real west coast trade ! (see also Heyd, i, 11, 4B ; and infra^ 
p. 43, note 2, on the trade of Soldaia). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 43 

And as we were sailing past it we saw (215) an island on 
which is a temple said to have been built by angelic 
hands.^ In the middle, at the summit of the triangle as 
it were, on the south side, is a city called Soldaia,^ which 



^ Berthier de la Garde says that this passage of Rubruck applies 
very exactiy to a point (or headland) in the harbour of Sevastopol, 
and corroborates the legend which connects it with the martyrdom of 
St Clement and the construction of a church dedicated to him on this 
spot. This headland would seem to have been at one time an island, 
and it would at all events look like one to a ship sailing by. The 
church on it is marked on Russian maps of as late a date as 1772. It 
is about 12 versts from the monastery of St. George, and the relics of 
St. Clement were found there by Constantine the Philosopher. Bacon 
(i> 357)> after quoting this passage of Friar William, adds "in this 
temple the body of the saint was buried." Some writers have 
located the place of St. Clement's martyrdom at Inkerman, but 
Berthier thinks this inadmissible {Materials for the Archceolo^y oj 
Russia, No. 12 ; The Antiquities of Southern Russia, Excavations 
in the Chersonesus, by A. L. Berthier de la Garde, 1893, 61, ^/ seq.), 
St. Clement is said to have been the immediate successor of Peter the 
Apostle. He was exiled to the Chersonesus during the persecution of 
Diocletian, and was martyred in about A.D. 100, during the persecution 
of Trajan. Whether our traveller referred to this spot or to another 
in the neighbourhood must remain doubtful, for traditions are also 
connected with Cape Chersones and Cape Fioraventi ; on the latter 
now stands the monastery of St. George, but it is believed by some 
archaeologists that the famous temple of Artemis of the Thracians, or 
Parthenon, occupied the same place, though other authorities say it 
was on Cape Chersones. 

2 The modern Sudak. The earliest mention I have found of this 
place dates from the twelfth century ; then, as now, it was known to 
Oriental writers as Sudak ; while western mediaeval authors write the 
name Sodaia, Soldachia, Soltadia, Sholtadia, but more frequently 
Soldaia. The Greeks transcribed the name ILovylaia. As Friar William 
justly remarks, it was in his time the emporium for Western Asiatic and 
Russian trade, monopolising that which in former centuries had been 
carried on at Kherson and Tanais — for Tana hardly existed in his 
time, at least we find no mention of it anywhere. Ibn Alathir (xiv, 456) 
says it was the capital of the Kipchak, and that the inhabitants of the 
country drew their supplies from it, for it was situated on the sea 
of the Khazars, and ships came there laden with stuffs. The 
Kipchaks bought from them, selling them young girls, slaves, black 
fox, beaver, grey squirrel skins, and other products of their country. 
Ibn Batuta tells us (ii, 415) that when he visited this town "its port 
was among the largest and finest known. Outside the city are 
gardens and streams. Turks inhabit it, with a corps of Greeks, who 
live under their protection and are artizans ; most of the houses are 
built of wood. This city was formerly very large, but the greater part 
was destroyed in a civil war between the Greeks and the Turks." 
Sudak was first captured by the Mongols in 1223, but lost shortly 
after, being recaptured in 1239 Hammer Golden, Horde ^ 87 ; 



44 JOURNEY OF 

loolceth across towards Sinopolis ; and thither come all the 
merchants arriving from Turkia who wish to go to the 
northern countries, and likewise those coming from Roscia 
and the northern countries who wish to pass into Turkia. 
The latter carry vaire and minever, and other costly furs ;^ 
the others (the former) carry cloths of cotton or bombax,^ 
silk stuffs and sweet-smelling spices.^ To the east of this 
province is a city called Matrica,* where the river Tanais 

Antoninos, Zametki xii-xv veka^ etc., 595 ; Heyd, i, 299, et seq.). 
Friar William thought — and in this he but followed the opinion of 
classical writers — that the coasts of the Crimea ran due east and west, 
north and south, Sudak occupying the south-east angle on the coast. 

^ Varium et grisiuvi. There is some uncertainty as to the exact 
species of furs called by these names. " Vair et griz," " vaire and 
minever," are constantly used in mediaeval works. Ducange (iii, 961) 
says they are commonly synonymous terms, but sometimes they are 
used to indicate distinct kinds of furs. Vaire is supposed to be 
squirrel ; minever is also a kind of squirrel skin, possibly the same as 
vaire, but with the white fur of the belly left on it. Others, however, 
say that minever was an inferior quality of ermine. Ibn Batuta (ii, 
401), speaking of the Russian furs, ranks ermine first and. sable or 
marten second. Pegolotti (Yule's Cathay^ 306) speaks of the 
"Sclavonian squirrel." In another passage (329), Rubruck says that 
skins, varii et grisii^ formed the currency of the Russians. Hakluyt 
renders these words by "ermines and gray furres." Purchas (34; 
translates this, "little spotted and grisel'd skins." Karamsin (i, 307), 
quoting Russian annalists, says the skins used as currency were those 
of marten and squirrel. I am inclined to believe that, whatever the 
correct interpretation of these words may be, as used by Friar William 
they designate marten and grey squirrel skins. 

2 Heyd (ii, 614) says that the most ancient name given to cotton in 
western works is bombacium^ though, from the end of the thirteenth 
century, one occasionally finds the word cottonum^ derived from the 
Arabic rotn. Rubruck uses the word cot tone in several passages ; 
Joinville also speaks of telle de colon. 

^ On the spice trade of the Levant in the thirteenth century, see 
Heyd, ii, 61 1, 693, et seq, 

* Matrica, also called Matracha^ Matica, and Matrega, was situated 
on the Taman peninsula, near the straits of Kertch, and on a branch 
of the Kuban river, called by Edrisi the Sakir. I have not been able 
to ascertain the date of its foundation, but in the tenth century it was 
already an important political and commercial centre of the Khazars. 
It is mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus {De administr.^ 181), 
who calls it Tafidrapxa (possibly ra Mdrapxa). In A.D. 966 it was 
captured by the Russians under Sviatoslaw, and formed part of a 
Russian principality, which derived its name, Tmutorkan (Constantine's 
Tamatarcha ?), from it, down to the time of the Coman invasion in the 
early part of the twelfth century, when it seems to have regained its 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 45 

falls into the sea of Pontus, through an opening xii miles 
wide. For this river, before it enters the sea of Pontus, 
forms a kind of sea to the north which has a width and 
breadth of seven hundred miles, with nowhere a depth of 
over six paces,^ so large vessels do not enter it, but the 
merchants of Constantinople who visit the said city of 
Matrica send their barks as far as the River Tanais^ to 
buy dried fish, such as sturgeon, barbel and tench,^ and 
other fishes in infinite varieties. The said province of 
Cassaria is therefore encompassed by the sea on three 
sides : to wit, on the west, where is Kersona, the city of 
Clement, and to the south where is the city of Soldaia, to 
which we were steering, and (216) which makes the apex 
of the province, and to the east by the sea of Tanais. 
Beyond this opening is Zikuia,^ which does not obey the 



independence (Karamsin, i, 214). In 1230 we hear of Matrica as 
having a Greek prince, people and clergy. In the middle of the 
fifteenth century Matrica was occupied by the Genoese, who held it 
for a long time under the suzerainty of one of the Cherkess princes 
(Antoninos, 829 ; Heyd, i, 206 ; ii, 180, 379). 

1 Friar William's view that the real mouth of the Don (Tanais) is at 
the Straits of Kertch, and that the Sea of Azov {Palus Maeotis) is 
properly but part of the river, meets with the approval of modern 
geographers. Rdclus {Gdographie^ v, 792) says that " the Maeotide 
Gulf is a river and a sea at the same time." Conf. our author's further 
remarks on the subject, 252. The views of the ancients regarding 
the Palus Maeotis, which Rubruck here only refers to as " a kind 
of sea," were rather hazy. Strabo (vii, 5, 258) gives its circumference 
as 9,000 stadia. Pliny (iv, 24, 197) says that some authors state it is 
1,406,000 paces in circumference, others 1,125,000. Jornandes (428) 
gives its circumference as 1,400,000 paces, and adds that its depth 
nowhere exceeds eight ells. 

2 Had the town of Tanais, or Tana, still existed at the time, it is 
hardly credible that our traveller would have omitted to mention it. 

2 Hosas (or thosas) barbotas. I have translated the terms con- 
jecturally. Tench is tinea in Latin, tenche'va Old French. In another 
passage, 249, our traveller refers to a barbota given him on the Don. 
Hakluyt has " Sturgeon, Thosses, Barbils, etc." 

* Strabo (ii, 31, 107 ; xi, 12, 45 ; xvii, 24,712) refers to the Zygi^ ^yS^h 
or Zygioi, among the tribes living between the Sea of Hyrcania 
(Caspian) and the Pontus. He also mentions (xi, 11, 446) a tribe of 
Siginnoi living near the Caucasus, probably in the plains north of it, 
as he refers to the women being expert chariot-drivers. Constantine 



46 JOURNEY OF 

Tartars, and to the east (of that) are the Suevi^and Hiberi,^ 
who do not obey the Tartars. After that, to the south, is 
Trapesund, which hath its own lord, Guido by name, who 
is of the family of the emperors of Constantinople, and 
he obeyeth the Tartars.*"* After that is the country ot 



Porphyrogenitus {De admin.^ i8i) says : " i8 or 20 miles from Tama- 
tarcha (Matrica) is the river Ucruch (Ovicpoux) which separates Zichia 
(Ztxtof) from it ; from the Ucruch (probably a branch of the Kuban) 
to the river Nicophin {^iKo^^iv) was Zichia." Pian de Carpine (748) 
speaks of the terra Ziccorum. See also d'Avezac, 497, and Douglas 
W. Fresh field, Proc. Roy, Geo. Soc.^ x, 328, et seq, 

1 The Suanians oi Pliny (vi, 4), or Soanes (2odi/ai) of Strabo (xi, 14, 
425). They are a people of Karthwelian race, and still occupy in the 
western Caucasus the country (Suanetia) they did in classical times 
(de Morgan, ii, 182, 189 : Finlay, iv, 339). 

'-^ By Hiberi our author has already told us he understands 
Georgians. He would have stated the case more correctly if he had 
said that the Georgians did not quietly submit to the Tartar yoke, for 
Georgia had been subdued by the Mongols in 1239 or thereabouts. 

^ This is one of the very few errors into which our traveller 
has fallen. The Emperor Andronikos Ghidos (his Guido) of Trebi- 
zonde only reigned to 1235. From 1238 to 1263, Manuel I, surnamed 
*' the Great Captain," was on the throne. Joinville (167) says : " Tandis 
que le roy fermoit Sayete (/>., was fortifying Sidon, in 1252), vindrent 
h li les messages k un grant seigneur de la profonde Gr^ce, lequel se 
fesoit appeler le grant Commenie et sire di Trafentesi (the Great 
Comnenus, lord of Trebizonde) .... Au roy rec|uistrent que il li 
envoaist une pucelle de son palais, et il la prenroit k femme. Et le 
roy respondi que il n'en avoit nulles amenees d'outre-mer, et leur loa 
que ils alassent en Constantinoble k I'empereur, qui ^toit cousin le roy, 
et li requeissent que il leur baillast une femme pour leur seigneur, tele 
que feust du lignage le roy et du sien." Had not Friar William left on 
his journey before the lime of the arrival of this important mission at 
Sidon, it cannot be conceived that he should have committed this 
mistake as to the reigning emperor. The empire of Trebizonde was 
founded in 1204 by Alexis Komnenos, son of Manuel, the eldest son 
of Andronikos. He took the title of "Great Comnenus," which was 
also borne by his successors. He died in 1222, and was succeeded 
by Andronikos Ghidos, his son-in-law, who became a vassal of the 
Seldjuk sultan of Iconium. When the Mongols, in 1240 or thereabouts, 
had driven the Queen of Georgia, Rusadan, from Tiflis, and her son 
David had been elected King of the Iberian and Lazian tribes, 
Trebizonde threw off the yoke of allegiance to the Turks, and united 
itself with the new Iberian kingdom. Andronikos was succeeded in 
1235 by Joannes I (Axuchos), who was killed while playmg tzukanion^ 
a game resembling polo, in 1238, and was succeeded by Manuel I, 
" the Great Captain," a son of the founder of the empire, who 
reigned until 1263. He was in the early part of his reign a vassal of 
the Seldjuks, and after the battle of Konsadac in 1244, of the Mongols 
(Finlay, iv, 317-339). The name Trebizonde is written Trapezounta 
by Byzantine authors, e.^.^ Const. Porphyro., De Admiiiis , 226. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 47 

Vastacius, whose son is called Ascar after his maternal 
grandfather,^ and who is not subject (to them). From the 
opening (of the sea) of Tanais to the west as far as the 
Danube all is theirs {i.e.^ the Tartars'), even beyond the 
Danube towards Constantinople, Blakia,'^ which is the land 
of Assan,^ and minor Bulgaria as far as Sclavonia, all pay 
them tribute ; and besides the regular tribute, they have 
taken in the past few years from each house one axe and 
all the iron which they found unwrought* 

We arrived then in Soldaia on the 12th of the calends 
of June (May 21st), and there had preceded us certain 



^ John Ducas Vataces, or John III, was the Greek emperor at 
Nicea from 1222 to 1255. He had by his first wife, Irene Lascaris, 
daughter of the Emperor Theodore Lascaris, whom he succeeded, a 
son called also Theodore Lascaris, our author's Ascar (see Gibbon, 
vii, 358, et seq. ; Lebeau, xvii, 326, et seq. ; and on this emperor's 
character and administration, /^/^., xvii, 413-415). Though Vataces 
was not a vassal of the Mongols, he paid them tribute. 

^ The Vlachs or Vallachians of Thessaly (our author's Blakia) 
called themselves, as do the modern Greeks, by the name of Romans. 
The name of Vlachs, or Vallachians, appears to have been given them 
by the Sclavonians who colonized their depopulated country. This 
country became known as Great Vlachia, or Vallachia (Finlay, iii, 227). 

3 Or rather "the kingdom of the Asanides." This Bulgo-Vallachian 
kingdom was founded in the latter part of the twelfth century by three 
brothers, Peter, Asan (or Yusan), and John. Asan first mounted the 
throne in 11 86, and on his death in 1196 he was succeeded by Peter, 
who shortly afterwards was murdered and succeeded by John. This 
state seems to have been quite as much Vallachian as Bulgarian. 
The old Bulgarian language had completely died out, the language of 
the court was Vallachian, and Asan and his successors affected to 
regard themselves as descendants of the Romans (Finlay, iii, 229, et 
seq.y iv, 28). After the first Asan, several monarchs of Bulgaria bore 
this name ; but from 1246 to 1277 the reigning sovereign was named 
Michel (Lebeau, xvii, 348, etseq.). 

* In massa. Hakluyt's text reads frumentum^ " corn," instead of 
ferrum, as in all the other MSS. In his translation (i 102) the passage 
is rendered : ** exacted of every household an axe, and all such corne as 
they found lying in heapes." Such tribute of iron seems to have been 
commonly levied by the Mongols, a people little able to produce 
the quantity of that metal needed by them. To cite only a few cases, 
we read that Hulagu demanded from each person on the capitation 
lists of Armenia the payment, among other things, of one arrow and 
one horseshoe (Dulaurier, 483). We are told in the Chronicle of 
Nestor {12) that the Drevlians of Russia paid the Khazars a tribute of 
one sword for each household (see also Karamsin, i, 50, 314). 



48 JOURNEY OF 

merchants of Constantinople, who had said that envoys 
from the Holy Land were coming who (217) wished to go 
to Sartach.^ I had, however, publicly preached on Palm 
Sunday (April 12th) in Saint Sophia that I was not an 
envoy, neither yours nor anyone's, but that I was going 
among these unbelievers according to the rule of our order. 
So when I arrived these said merchants cautioned me to 
speak guardedly, for they had said that I was an envoy, and 
if I said I was not an envoy I would not be allowed to pass. 
So I spoke in the following way to the captains of the 
city, or rather to the substitutes of the captains, for the 
captains had gone to Baatu during the winter bearing the 
tribute, and had not yet returned : " We have heard say 
in the Holy Land that your Lord Sartach is a Christian,^ 
and greatly were the Christians rejoiced thereat, and 
chiefly so the most Christian lord the King of the French, 
who has come thither on a pilgrimage and is fighting 
against the Saracens^ to wrench the holy places from out 



1 This Mongol chief was son of Batu. His name is variously 
written in the MSS., Sartach^ Sartath, Sarhat^ Sarcath, Sarchac^ 
Sarthac, Sarcach^ Sarchat, Serttah^ and Salcath. I have uniformly 
written it Sartach, a transcription which closely approximates that 
adopted by Mohammedan contemporary writers (Bretschneider, 
Med. Geo^.^ 298). 

2 The belief that Sartach was a Christian was general at the time ; 
most contemporary writers, Mohammedan as well as Christian, refer to 
it. The Armenian chronicles say that Sartach had been brought up 
by the Russian (or Syrian) Christians, was baptized, and lived as a 
Christian ; Bar Hebraeus states that not only had he been baptized, 
but that he became a deacon {K]a.proth, /ourn. Asiat., xii, 211, 277 ; 
Dulaurier, 452 ; see also Friar WiUiam's opinion of his Christianity, 
263). In 1254, Pope Innocent IV wrote to him congratulating him 
on his conversion, which he had learnt from a presbyter named 
John, who had come to him from Sartach. On this mission of John to 
the Pope, see Remusat, 61. He thinks it was a self-imposed one. 

3 The Mongols called the Mohammedans Sartol^ the Sarti of Pian 
de Carpine (710). This word, the same as our Saracen^ comes from 
the Arabic sharki, " Oriental." The earliest use I have found of it in 
a western writer is in Eusebius (///"^Z. Eccles.,\\, 42, 288), who there 
speaks of the Bdp^apoi 2apaKi]voi. Constantine Porphyrogenitus 
{De Ceremon., i, 739) refers to the Eo-Tre'pioi, or the Saracens of ihc 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 49 

their hands : it is for this I wish to go to Sartach, and y 
carry to him the letters of the lord king, in which he 
admonisheth him of the weal of all Christendom." And 
they received us right favourably, and gave us lodgings in 
the episcopal church. And the bishop of this church had 
been to Sartach, and he told me much good of Sartach, 
which I later on did not discover myself. 

Then they gave us the choice whether we would have 
carts with oxen to carry our effects, or sumpter horses. 
(218) And the merchants of Constantinople advised me 
to take carts, and that I should buy the regular covered 
carts such as the Ruthenians carry their furs in,^ and in 
these I could put such of our things as I would not wish 
to unload every day ; should I take horses it would be 
necessary to unload them at each stopping-place and to 
load other horses ; and furthermore I should be able to ride 
more slowly following the gait of the oxen. Then I 
accepted their advice, unfortunately, however, for I was 
two months on the way to Sartach, which I might have 
travelled in one had I gone with horses. 

I had brought with me from Constantinople, on the 
advice of merchants, fruits, muscadel wine and dainty 
biscuits to present to the first captains (of the Tartars), 
so that my way might be made easier, for among them 
no one is looked upon in a proper way who comes with 
empty hands. All these things I put in one of the carts, 
since I had not found the captains of the city, and I was 
told they would be most acceptable to Sartach if I could 
carry them to him that far. We set out on our journey 



West {El Magreb), Plan de Carpine's Bisermins {i.e., Mussulmans) 
seems to have applied more particularly to the Mohammedan states 
of Turkestan (see Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 120). 

^ Probably in all points similar to the high two-wheeled Tartar carts 
used in south-east Russia and Central Asia, and still called arba : a 
name which Ibn Batuta (ii, 361, 362), who travelled in one from 
Soldaia to the Kipchak court in the fifteenth century, gives to this 
conveyance. 



50 JOURNEY OF 

about the calends of June (ist June) with our four covered 
carts and two others which were lent us by them and in 
which was carried bedding to sleep on at night. And 
they gave us also five horses to ride, for us five persons, 
myself, and my companion Friar Bartholomew of 
Cremona, and Gosset the bearer (219) of the presents, 
and Homo Dei the dragoman,^ and the boy Nicholas 
whom I had bought at Constantinople by means of your 
charity.2 They gave us also two men who drove the carts 
and looked after the oxen and horses. 

Now from Kcrsona all the way to the mouth of the 



^ Homo Dei Turgemannus, The name of Friar William's interpreter 
has puzzled former translators, and I confess that I do not feel sui:e 
that the explanation I have to offer of it is acceptable. Hakluyt has 
" the man of God, Turgemanus." Bergeron translates it by ^He bon- 
hommc^'' while da Civezza and F. M. Schmidt retain the Latin name. 
Assuming that this man was a half-bred Arabic-speaking S)/^rian, 
a language with which the Friar was almost certainly familiar* and 
that he was also a Mohammedan, it occurs to me that he may have 
been called Abd-ullah, " the servant or slave of Allah," and that our 
traveller preferred to give him a name which had not such a strong 
Mohammedan cachet about it. In mediaeval Greek and Latin, avdpwTros 
and Ao7;iOy and in French homine^ had the meaning of "liegeman, 
bondsman, slave." 

Turgemanniis is the Arabic iarjuman^ the Turkish ierguman^ the 
mediieval and modern French truchement or truchcman. The form 
terciman also occurs, as in the letter of Arghun to the Pope, dated 
1285 (Chabot. 190). The word dragoman was also in use, even 
before the time of Friar William. It occurs in Byzantine Greek under 
the form 8/jayo/xaj/of (Codinus, 40), and Joinville (loi) says, "II avoit 
gens illec qui savoient le sarrazinnois et le fran^ois, que Ton appele 
drugemens." William Thomas (1550), in his translation of Barbaro's 
Travels^ uses (51) the word troiichman. 

2 Very likely a native of the Kipchak, for his familiarity with the 
anguages of the country through which Friar William was about to 
travel would have made him a valuable addition to the party. The 
slave-markets of the Levant were supplied at this time principally 
from the Kipchak. A little later on, the Mameluks of Egypt were 
mostly recruited among these Kipchak slaves. The Mcsalek al-absar 
(269) says that " notwithstanding the superiority of the inhabitants of 
the Kabdjak over the troops of the Djcrkes, Russians, Madjar, and 
As, these people carried off their children, which they sold to traders." 
On the slave trade of the Levant in the Middle Ages, see Heyd, ii, 
555, ct seq. Nicholas only accompanied Friar William as far as 
Batu's camp on the Volga. He was detained there, and sent back to 
Sartach to await the Friar's return. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 5 1 

Tanais there are high promontories along the sea, and 
there are forty hamlets between Kersona and Soldaia, 
nearly every one of which has its own language ; among 
them were many Goths, whose language is Teutonic.^ 

Beyond these mountains to the north is a most beautiful 
orest,2 in a plain full of springs and rivulets, and beyond 
this forest is a mighty plain which stretches out for five 
days to the border of this province to the north, where it 
contracts, having the sea to the east and the west, so that 
there is a great ditch from one sea to the other.^ In this 
plain used to live Comans^ before the Tartars came, and 
they forced the cities referred to and the forts to pay them 



^ Friar Benedict {supra^ p. 36) speaks of the " country of the Saxi, 
whom we believe to be Goths," which he says lay to the south of his 
route when travelling through Comania. It would seem from the follow- 
ing passage of Barbaro (27) that "forty villages" was the name of a place. 
He says, speaking of the Isle of Capha, as he calls the Crimea, that it 
has " twoo places walled, but not stronge, the one whereof is called 
Sorgathi (Sudak?), which they also called Incremin, that signifieth a 
forteresse ; and the other Cherchiarde, which signifieth xl places." 
1 am rather inclined to believe, however, that Barbaro slightly mis- 
understood his informant. The word castella^ used by Friar William, 
is old French ^<w^/, or cazal; the modern French equivalent is ^^bour^P 
William of Tyr (i 1 1 1, 1 1 12) has ^^quicumque . . . casalia habent^^^ which 
in the old French version is rendered " cil qui auront les viles cham- 
pestres que Ton apele casiaus." Hakluyt renders casalia by "cottages 
or granges" (107) ; castella he translates "castles" (103). Barbaro (30), 
speaking of these Goths of the Crimea, says : " The Gothes speake 
dowche, which I knowe by a dowcheman, my servunt, that was with 
me there : for they understode one an other well enough, as we un- 
derstande a furlane (/.^., a man of Forli) or a florentine. Of this 
neighborhode of the Gothes and Alani, I suppose the name Gotitalani 
to be deryved, for Alani were first in this place. But than came the 
Gothes and conquered these cuntreys, myngleng their name with 
the Alani, and so being myngled togither called themselfs Gotita- 
lani, who, in effect, folowe all the Greekish facions, and so also do 
the Circassi." Busbeck, in the middle of the sixteenth century, while 
at Constantinople conversed with two of these Goths, one of whom, 
he says, looked like a man from Flanders. He took down a vocabulary 
in their language, some seventy- five words and phrases, about two- 
thirds of which are pure Teutonic, if not English {Eptstoice^ 383, et seq. ; 
see also Heyd, ii, 208 ; Yule, Cathay^ 200 ; d'Avezac, 49*). 

^ The southern Crimea is still noted for its beautiful and varied 
crest growth (Reclus, v, 824). 

^ The ditch at the Isthmus of Perekop. 

* On the Conians, see infra^ note to p. 253 of text. 

E 2 



52 JOURNEY OF 

tribute ; but when the Tartars came^ such a multitude of 
Comans entered this province, all of whom fled to the 
shore of the sea, that they ate one another, the living the 
dying, as was told me by a certain merchant who saw it, 
the living devouring and tearing with their teeth the raw 
flesh of the dead, as dogs do corpses. Toward the end of 
this province are many and large lakes, on whose shores 
are brine springs, the water of which as soon as it enters 
the lake is turned into salt as hard as ice. And from these 
brine springs Baatu and Sartach derive great revenues, for 
from all Ruscia they come thither for salt, and for each cart- 
load they give two pieces of cotton worth half an yperpera. 
There come there also by sea many ships for salt, and all 
contribute according to the (220) quantity (they take).^ 

After having left Soldaia we came on the third day 
across the Tartars, and when I found myself among them 
it seemed to me of a truth that I had been transported 
into another century. I will describe to you as well as 
I can their mode of living and manners. 



^ The Mongols invaded the Crimea for the first time in 1222. 
D'Ohsson (i, 339) says : ** On the news of the unexpected invasion of 
the Mongols, the Kipchacs (Friar William's Comans) retired from all 
sides towards the extremities of their territory, abandoning their best 
pasture lands to the enemy's army, which took up its winter quarters in 
the heart of the country. Ten thousand Kipchac families passed the 
Danube and entered the territory of the Roman empire ; the Emperor, 
John Ducas, took them in his service .... A great number also took 
refuge on Russian territory." 

2 Strabo (vii, 4, 258) already refers to the great quantity of salt the 
Greeks were in the habit of getting from the Palus Maeotis. At the 
present day the salt lakes of Perekop yield annually as much as 
23 millions of poods, or 759 millions of pounds. There are four other 
groups of salt lakes in the Crimea, but the PereKop group yields the 
most (E. Stanton, Salt Production of Russia ; U.S. Consular Reports, 
vol. iv, 477 ; see also Tott, 358, and Clarke, 112). TYi^ yperpera 
appears to have been worth about ten shillings sterling (see infra^ 
note to p. 244 of text, for the value of iki^ yperpera). 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. S3 

^OWHEP^E have they fixed dwelling-places, nor 
do they know where their next will be. They 
have divided among themselves Cithia,^ which 
extendeth from the Danube to the rising of the sun ; 
and every captain, according as he hath more or less 
men under him, knows the limits of his pasture lands 
and where to graze in winter and summer, spring and 
autumn. For in winter they go down to warmer regions 
in the south : in summer they go up to cooler towards 
the north. The pasture lands without water they graze 
over in winter when there is snow there, for the snow 
serveth them as water.^ They set up the dwelling in 
which they sleep on a circular frame of interlaced sticks 



^ Isidorus, to whom Friar William frequently refers as an authority, 
says (xiv, 500) that formerly Scythia extended from India to the con- 
fines of Germany and the Danube, but that later on this term was 
applied to a region of smaller extent, beginning in the east at the Seric 
Ocean, and extending westward to the Caspian, while to the south it 
reached to the Caucasus. Hakluyt (104) renders the first phrase: 
" They have in no place any settled citie to abide in, neither knowe 
they of the celestiall citie to come." Clavijo (112) says : " The Zagatays 
have no other dwellings than tents, moving from the banks of the 
rivers in summer to the warm districts in winter. Timur with all his 
host wanders in the same way over the plains, winter and summer." 

2 Strabo (vii, 3, 254) says of the Scythians : " The tents of the 
Nomads are of felt, and fixed on carts, and in these they live ; all 
around them are the flocks which supply them with the milk, cheese, 
and meat on which they feed. They follow them in their pasturages, 
changing all the time for new places with grass. In winter they live 
in the marshes near the Mseotis, in summer in the steppes (eV mis 
TTfStots)." The custom of dividing the pasture lands, or assigning 
certain limits to the annual migrations of each band or tribe, existed 
from the earliest times among the Turks ; as it does, in fact, among all 
pastoral tribes, or those living by the chase, as the Indians of North 
America. In the Annals of the Chin dynasty of China (a.d. 557-581), 
we read of the Turks that " though they wander about, each of the 
tribes has its separate land" {Chou shu, bk. 50, 3 ; conf. also Marco 
Polo, i, 244 ; 'R2idL\o^^ Aus Stberien^ i, 414 ; and Sven Hedin, Through 
Asia, i, 419). The latter, speaking of the Kirghiz of the Pamirs, says : 
"They spend the summer on \\\q ycyiaus (summer pasture-grounds) 
.... and in winter .... they seek the pastures {kish/aks) in the 
valleys. The members of the same aul are, as a rule, kinsmen, and 
always graze the same yeylaus and the same kishlaks. No other aul 
is permitted to encroach upon pastures thus appropriated without 
previous agreement." 



54 JOURNEY OF 

converging into a little round hoop on the top, from which 
projects above a collar as a chimney, and this (framework) 
they cover over with white felt. Frequently they coat the 
felt with chalk, or white clay, or powdered bone, to make 
it appear whiter, and sometimes also (they majce the felt) 
black. The felt around this collar on top they decorate 
with various pretty designs. Before the entry they also 
suspend felt (221) ornamented with various embroidered 
designs in color. For they embroider the felt, colored or 
otherwise, making vines and trees, birds and beasts.^ 



^ The round felt-covered tent common to the Tartar, Turki, and 
Mongol tribes has been described in about the same terms by every 
writer on this part of Asia (see Herodotus, iii, 35 ; Marco Polo, i, 
244 ; Ibn Batuta, ii, 361, 377-379, 387 ; Bergmann, ii, 82, etseq. ; Pallas, 
Voyages^ i, 503). 1 will only give Pian de Carpine's description of it 
(616): "They (/. ^., the Mongols) have round tent-like dwellings 
\stationes)^ made of twigs and small sticks. In the top they have a 
round opening which admits the light, and by which the smoke can 
escape, for they keep a fire always in the centre. The sides and roof 
are covered over with felt, and the doors are also made of felt. Some 
dwellings are large, some small, according to the importance or 
poverty of the people. Some of them can be taken down and put up 
in a moment, and are always carried on pack animals ; while others 
cannot be taken apart, and are carried on carts ; one ox hitched 
to the cart could haul the smaller ones : the larger require three, four, 
or more, according to their size ; and wherever they go, either to war 
or elsewhere, they take them along with them." 

The custom of carrying set-up tents on carts, which at one time or 
another has obtained among various peoples and tribes of Northern 
Asia, is noted by Hesiod (Goettling's ed., 33) ; by Herodotus (iv, 46) ; 
by Hippocrates {De aere^ aqua et locis^ 44, 353) (this last-named author 
mentioning a detail not found elsewhere, that the Scythian carts had 
four and even six wheels) ; Strabo (i, 104, 249, et pas.) ; Pomponius 
Mela (i, 619) ; and many other classical writers also speak of them. 
Ammianus Marcellinus, xxii, 176, tells us the Alans had their cart- 
tents covered with bark {corticibus tectis), 

Chinese annals state that a great branch of the Turkish nation was 
known to them in the first centuries of the Christian era as the 
Kao-cICi^ or '' High carts ;" on account, it is said, of the high-wheeled 
felt-covered carts in which they lived, but the characters with which 
the name is written are purely phonetic. These Kao-ch'e, who at a 
later period were called by them T'ieh-lc, or K'i-le, comprised the 
Kirghiz, the Uigurs, the Alans, the Karluks, nearly all the tribes, in 
fact, called Oguz Turks by Mohammedan wTiters {T^ang shu^ bk. 
257 ; Ma Tuan lin, bks. 344,347). In the twelfth and early part of the 
thirteenth centuries, a branch of these Kao-ch'e lived to the north- 
east of the Caspian, around the Aral lake. They were known to 
mediaeval Mohammedan writers as the Kankalis, or Kankly, a name 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 55 

And they make these houses so large that they are 
sometimes thirty feet in width. I myself once measured 
the width between the wheel-tracks of a cart xx feet, and 
when the house was on the cart it projected beyond 
the wheels on either side v feet at least. I have myself 
counted to one cart xxii oxen 'drawing one house, eleven 
abreast across the width of the cart, and the other eleven 
before them. The axle of the cart was as large as the 
mast of a ship, and one man stood in the entry of the 
house on the cart driving the oxenj;^ 

Furthermore they weave light twigs into squares of the 
size of a large chest, and over it from one end to the other 
they put a turtle-back also of twigs, and in the front end 
they make a little doorway ; and then they cover this 



which Abulghazi (41) says was derived from the Turki word kang^ 
" cart," their first father having invented carts. Friar William (265) 
refers to the Cangle. 

Pei shih (bk. 94) says that the Kitan tribes of Shih-wei, to the east 
of Lake Baikal used ox-carts, on which they had straw-covered huts 
like the felt-covered ones of the Turks (see also Marco Polo, i, 244 ; 
Ibn Batuta, ii, 361 ; Barbaro, 13 ; Anthony Jenkinson, 52, 55). 

In modem limes Pallas {Voyages, v, 154) notes that he met, near 
the lower Volga, a band of Tartars or Mankates, who called them- 
selves Kunduran, " like most of the people inhabiting the Kuban, 
whence they came." "Their Jurts, or Jurtens," he says, ''differ in 
shape and construction from those of the Kalmuks and other 
Nomadic peoples of Asia. They are not susceptible of being taken 
to pieces, but they are also lighter, and of a size to be on a cart, 

that is to say, they are only 8 ft. or 9 ft. in diameter When 

they go from one place to another, they put this tent, or cabin, 
on a two-wheeled cart {Arba\ so that it rests in front and behind 
on the shafts, and reaches beyond the wheels on the sides .... 
The rich have two or three cabins, according to the size of their 
families. These have, besides, a private cart carrying a little kind 
of house in wood, something like the moveable huts of our shepherds. 
In these they sleep with their wives. In summer, when they are 
stopping for any length of time in any one spot with their flocks, 
they do not take the trouble to take the cabins off the carts .... 
They harness bulls to their carts, usually two, with a third sometimes 
as leader" (see also Le Bruyn, Voyages^, i, 305). 

Mongol tents of the present time have usually designs in stitchwork 
on the felt which covers the entry, and Kirghiz tents have broad 
oraaraental bands in fringe and stitchwork around the sides. 

^ These carts must - have been exceptionally large ones. Conf. 
Pian de Carpine's remarks in the preceding note. 



S6 JOURNEY OF 

coffer or little house with black felt coated with tallow 
or ewe*s milk, so that the rain cannot penetrate it, and 
they decorate it likewise with embroidery work. And in 
such coffers they poit all their bedding and valuables, and 
they tie them tightly on high carts drawn by camels, 
so that they can cross rivers (without getting wet). Such 
coffers they never take off the cart. 

When they set down their dwelling-houses, they always 
turn the door to the south,^ and after that they place the 
carts with coffers on either side near the house at a half 
stone's throw, so that the dwelling stands between two 
rows of carts as between two walls. (222) The matrons 
make for themselves most beautiful (luggage) carts, which 
I would not know how to describe to you unless by a 
drawing, and I would depict them all to you if I knew how 
to paint. A single rich Moal or Tartar has quite c or cc 
such carts with coffers. Baatu has xxvi wives, each of 
whom has a large dwelling, exclusive of the other little 
ones which they set up after the big one, and which are 
like closets, in which the sewing girls live, and to each of 
these (large) dwellings are attached quite cc carts.'^ And 



^ The tents faced south because the prevailing winds of Northern 
Asia are westerly. I have often seen Mongol tents facing east and 
south-east. When camped, as in the narrow valleys south of the 
Ts'aidam and around the Koko nor, the tents always face down the 
valley (conf. Bergmann, ii, 96, and Yule, Marco Polo^ i, 245). It is 
interesting to find it noted in the Chou Shu (bk. 50, 3) that the Khan 
of the Turks, who lived always on the Tu-kin mountain, had his tent 
invariably facing south, " so as to show reverence to the sun's rising 
place." 

2 Ibn Batuta (ii, 413) tells us that one of the wives of the Tartar 
Khan of the Kipchak, when on 'a short visit to her father, Andronicus 1 1 
the Younger, Emperor of Constantinople, though she had left in the 
Khan's camp most of her women and baggage, had still with her 
nearly 400 carts, 2,000 horses, 300 oxen, 200 camels, 500 horsemen, 
200 young slave-girls, and 20 pages. The Chinese traveller, Ch'ang- 
chun ( 1 221-1224), speaking of the camp of Ochigin, the younger 
brother of Chingis Khan, says that it was composed of "several 
thousands of black carts and felt tents standing in rows." The same 
traveller tells us of the camp {ordii) of one of Chingis' consorts, which 
was composed of " more than a thousand carts and tents" (Bretsch- 
neidcr, Med. travel.., 21, 24). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 57 

when they set up their houses, the first wife places her 
dwelling on the extreme west side, and after her the others 
according to their rank, so that the last wife will be in the 
extreme east ; and there will be the distance of a stone's 
throw between the iurt of one wife and that of another. 
The ordy}- of a rich Moal seems like a large town, though 
there will be very few men in it. One girl will lead xx or 
XXX carts, for the country is flat, and they tie the ox or 
camel carts the one after the other, and a girl will sit on the 
front one driving the ox, and all the others follow after with 
the same gait. Should it happen that they come to some bad 
piece of road, they untie them, and take them across one by 
one. So they go along slowly, as a sheep or an ox might 
walk. 




[HEN they have fixed their dwelling, the door 
• turned to the south, they set up the couch of 
the master on the north side. The side for the 
women is always the east side, that is to say, on the left 

^ Curia. Friar William states (267) that he uses this word to render 
the Mongol term orda^ a word now usually transcribed ordu or ordo. 
Pian de Carpine (609) says, " orda means the dwellings {stationes) of 
the emperor and the princes." This interpretation of the word is con- 
firmed by contemporary Mohammedan writers (Quatrem^re, 21, 23, 
98). Chinese writers of the Mongol period translate the word by 
hsing kung, or '' moveable palace" (Bretschncider, Med. travel.^ 25). 
Palladius (40) says the term ordo is, properly speaking, a separate 
palace of the Khan, under the management of one of his wives. 
Bergmann (ii, 83) states that among the Kalmuks the word oergo {ordu) 
is used to designate either a collection of tents or else the dwelling of 
a prince or high lama. The Kalmuk terms oergo^ ^(-^^^t ''ind kosh^ he 
adds, correspond to our " palace, house, hut." The Jihan Kushai 
(Quatrem^re, 54) says the Mongols used the word iurt to designate a 
camp or a dwelling (see also d'Ohsson, i, 83). Friar William, how- 
ever, is not very careful in the use of the word curia; he applies it 
alike to the camp of a prince, to a single tent — he does not use the 
word tentorium more than two or three times -to the imperial court, 
as court and as building, in which it is being held. I have there- 
fore translated curia, sometimes by the Mongol term ordu, some- 
times by iurt, and other times by court. Quatrem6re (loi) is of 
opinion — and Friar William's use of the word curia seems to justify 
his belief — that the word ordu designated originally those tents of the 
Mongols which were always set up and carried about on ox-carts. 



58 



JOURNEY OF 



of the house of the master, he sitting on his couch with 
his face turned to the south. (223) The side for the men 
is the west side, that is, on the right Men coming into 
the house would never hang up their bows on the side of 
the women.^ 

And over the head of the master is always an image of 
felt, like a doll or statuette, which they call the brother of 
the master ; another similar one is above the head of the 
mistress, which they call the brother of the mistress, and 
they are attached to the wall ; and higher up between the 
two of them is a little lank one {jnacilentd), who is, as it 
were, the guardian of the whole dwelling. The mistress 



^ So firmly established were these rules of etiquette that they were 
strictly adhered to by the Mongol emperors in their palaces. The 
same rules still obtain throughout Mongolia, and among the Tartar 
and Tibetan tent-dwellers. The annexed plan of the interior of a 




uri of Altai Tartars, taken from Radloff(^2/j5/^/Wtv/, i, 270), explains 
this interior arrangement of the tents (see also infra^ the descrip- 
tion of the ceremonies in the palace at Karakorum, and conf. Pian 
de Carpine, 745). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 59 

places in her house on her right side, in a conspicuous 
place at the foot of her couch, a goat-skin full of wool or 
other stuff, and beside it a very little statuette looking in 
the direction of the attendants and women. Beside the 
entry on the women's side is yet another image, with a 
cow's tit for the women, who milk the cows ; for it is part 
of the duty of the women to milk the cows. On the other 
side of the entry, toward the men, is another statue with 
a mare's tit for the men who milk the mares.^ 



^ Plan de Carpine (618-620) says : "They have certain idols made of 
felt in the image of a man, and these they place on either side of the 
door of their dwelling ; and above these they place things made of 
felt in the shape of tits, and these they believe to be the guardians of 
their flocks, and that they insure them increase of milk and colts. 
They make yet others out of silk stuffs, and these they honour 
greatly. Some persons put these in a handsomely-covered cart 
before the door of their dwelling, and whoever stealeth anything from 
that cart is without mercy put to death. Now, when they want to 
make these idols, all the noble ladies in the camp meet together, and 
make them with due reverence ; and when they have made them 
they kill a sheep and eat it, and the bones they burn in the fire. And 
when any child falls ill, they make in this same fashion an idol and tie 
it over its couch. The chiefs, chiliarchs, and centurions have always 
a he-goat in their dwellings. To these said idols they offer the first 
milk of every flock and of every herd of mares ; and when they begin 
to eat or drink, they first offer them of their food or drink. And when 
they kill any animal, they offer the heart in a bowl to the idol in the 
cart, and leave it there till the morrow, and then they take it away, 
cook it and eat it. 

" They also make an idol of their first emperor, which they place in 
a cart in a place of honour before the dwelling, as I saw before the 
orda of the emperor (Kuyuk Khan), and they offer it many gifts ; and 
they offer it also horses, which none may ride till their death. They 
offer it likewise other animals, and if they kill any of these to eat they 
break none of their bones, but burn them in the fire. And they bow 
to it facing the south, as they bow to God" (conf. supra^ 35, Benedict's 
account). 

Marco Polo (i, 249, ii, 478) informs us that the chief of these " gods" 
of felt is called AW/^^j, and that the image on his left hand is his 
wife, and his children those in front of him. 

Barbaro (34) says : ''The Tartariens worship Images that they carie 
in their carts, though some there be that use daylie to worship that 
beast that they happen first to meete whan they go foorthc of their 
doores." 

Passing to modern times, Pallas ( Voyages^ iii, 433, iv, 51 1) tells us of 
the ** idols dressed like dolls" found in the iurts of the Buriats. These 
idols, he says, are also found among the Beltire Tartars of the Abakan. 
When sacrifices arc made, their magicians take these idols and bless 
them. The same traveller {op. at., iv, 579) speaks of the Tus, or 



6o JOURNEY OF 

And when they have come together to drink, they first 
sprinkle with liquor this image which is over the master's 
head, then the other images in order. Then an attendant 
goes out of the dwelling with a cup^ and liquor, and 
sprinkles three times to the south, each time bending the 
knee, and that to do reverence to the fire ; then to the east, 
and that to do reverence to the air ; then to the west to do 
reverence to the water ; to the north they sprinkle for the 
dead. When the master takes (224) the cup in hand and 
is about to drink, he first pours a portion on the ground. 



household gods of the Tartars of Krasnoyarsk, which they also call 
Aimae. They sacrifice to them little animals, and offer them the 
skins of the victims, meat, or such other objects as they value or 
wish to obtain. The idol placed on the east side of the entry of the 
tent, but outside it, is the representative of an evil deity which they 
have to propitiate by sacrifices. There is another idol, that of the 
good deity. On the day of its feast they hold it over the fire, perfuming 
it with absinth, when it turns red. This idol is kept inside the iurt. 

Radloff (^wj 5/<^/V/V';/, i, 363), speaking of the Kumandin Tartars, 
says that on entering one of their huts he found hanging over the 
window opposite the door five idols. The first with its head upwards 
was said to be Sary-kan^ the next one, which resembled it closely, was 
called Kyr^ys-kan. The third figure was called Tds-ka?tym^ and its 
head was downwards, while the second had its upwards. The fourth 
figure was that of Kudy-kan^ and it was a little larger than the 
previous ones. As to the fifth, it was called Kop-kdlgdn. The two 
last-named were provided with moustaches. The owner of the hut 
did not show any special reverence to these idols, though he asked 
Radloff not to touch them." 

Palladius (15), quoting the Hei-lufig chiang wai chi^ or/* Records of 
the foreign tribes of the Amur country," says : ** The Dahurs and 
Barhus have in their dwellings, according to the number of the male 
members, puppets made of straw, on which eyes, eyebrows, and mouths 
are drawn ; these puppets are dressed up to the waist. When some 
one of the family dies his puppet is taken out of the house, and a new 
puppet is made for every newly-born member of the family. On New 
Year's Day offerings are made to the puppets, and care is taken not to 
disturb them by moving them, etc., in order to avoid bringing sickness 
into the house." 

The word ongot^ ongon^ or ongotiii^ by which these idols are usually 
designated among the Tungusic people, appears to be the original of 
Marco Polo's Naiigay (Yule, Marco Polo^ 250 ; see also Cordier, 
Odoric^ 486 ; d'Ohsson, i, 16 ; (jombojew, 652). 

1 Ciphinn. Wooden cups were then as now in general use among 
all the tribes of northern Asia. Ibn Hatuta (ii, 392) refers to " the 
pretty and light wooden cups" used by the people of the Kipchak in 
his time. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 6 1 

If he were to drink seated on a horse, he first before he 
drinks pours a little on the neck or the mane of the horse.^ 
Then when the attendant has sprinkled toward the four 
quarters of the world he goes back into the house, where 
two attendants are ready with two cups and platters to carry 
drink to the master and the wife seated near him upon the 
couch. And when he hath several wives, she with whom 
he hath slept that night sits beside him in the day, and it 
becometh all the others to come to her dwelling that day 
to drink, and court is held there that day, and the gifts 
which are brought that day are placed in the treasury of 
that lady.2 A bench with a skin of milk, or some other 
drink, and with cups, stands in the entry.^ 



^ The custom of making oblations towards the cardinal points, the 
zenith and the nadir, is still adhered to by many Mongols and 
Tibetans. It is noted by the Russian archbishop Peter in 1245 
(Matth. Paris, op, cit.^ iv, 388), and by Pian de Carpine (622) who says 
they specially reverenced and worshipped the sun, the moon, fire, 
water, and the earth ; in the morning especially they made these 
libations. 

^ Mesalek al-absar (264) referring to the Turks of the Kipchak, 
has : " Each of the princesses his wives (/.<?., of the Khan of Kipchak) 
. collects a portion of the taxes. Each day of the year this prince goes 
to the house of one of his wives, with whom he passes the day and 
takes his meals. She presents him with a full suit of clothes, and 
he gives the clothes he takes off to some favourite courtier." Pian 
de Carpine (642) says : "When a Tartar has several wives, each has her 
own tent and household, and he drinks and eats and sleeps with one 
of them one day, and another day with another. One of them, how- 
ever, is the greatest among them, and he stops more frequently with 
her than with the others ; and though they are so many they do not 
often wrangle among themselves." 

' Pallas ( Voya^es^ i, 698) remarks : " The principal piece of furniture 
of the dirty cabins of the Bashkirds is a big skin or vase of leather in 
the form of a bottle ; it is placed on a wooden stand, and is always 
ftill of sour milk, which they call arjan:^ See on arjan or airan^ 
Rubruck, p. 240 of text. 



L 



02 JOUKNKY OK 

52 N winter they make a capital drink of rice, of 
2gg millet, and of honey ; it is clear as wine : and 
wine is carried to them from remote parts. In 
summer they care only for cosmos} There is always 
cosmos near the house, before the entry door, and beside 
it stands a guitar-player with his guitar. Lutes and 
viclles (^225) such as we have I did not see there, but many 
other instruments which are unknown among us.'^ And 
when the master begins to drink, then one of the at- 
tendants cries with a loud voice, ** Hal" and the guitarist 



' These three kindn of drinks, which Kriar William in another 
pHssa^e (335) ' '*''^ eervoisc (!)ccr) of rice, or icrracina^ cervoisc of 
millet, and hoai^v:i\u\ imported probably from ('hina and the Kipchak, 
bill were certainly not manufactured by the Monj^ols. The wine they 
pr.')bably y^oi from Persia and fronj Turkestan. Pian de Carpine (640) 
states the facts more accurately. He says: "They fthe Mon^oh) 
drink ^reat (mantities of mare's milk, if they have it ; they drink also 
sheep's, >ij()at s, cow's, and ( amel's milk. Wine, cervoise, and mead 
{fiKufofit'fn^ Kriar William's /W, or bout ? , they have not, unless it is 
sent from other nations or is j^'iven to them." Ibn Ilatutafii, 408) says 
of the Kip( hak : '' The principal drink of the Turks is a wine; prepared 
with honey, for they belong to the hnnefite se( t and consider the use 
of wine permissible. When the Sidtan wants to drink, his dauffhter 
takes the ( up in her hand ; she salutes her father by bending her knee, 
then she hands him the cup. When the Sidtan has drunk, she takes 
another cup and han<ls it the great khatun, who drinks, then she 
presents it to the other khatuns according to their rank .... Finally 
the inferior emirs rise and serve drink to the sons of the Julian, and 
during all the time they sing nntiUiiivfi/i (short songs;" (see also 
(,)uatremere, }t^()). (Chinese travellers in the Kipchak in the thirteenth 
<entury also refer to the use there made of a " fermented beverage 
from honey" (Mretschneider, Afnt. travi'Ly 118}. The cervoisc of rice 
(cerTisiit iff risio) is, of course, ('hinese rice wine. Cosnios is Marco 
Polo's k'cniiz^ our kumiz or kumiss (see Yule, Marco Polo^ i, 250). 

'^ The most an( lent and commonly-used musical instruments of the 
Trnkish tribes appear to have been the reed-pipe, drum, and several 
l<inds uf guitars with four, (ive, or nine strings (/V/ .v/r/7/, bk. 94). 
hergmann Hi, 17^; says the Kalmuks usr the drum, a kind of zither, 
the flute, and a violin. Kadloff {Aus Sihiricn, i, 381 j states that the 
Tartars of the Altai have a reed piiie, a guitar, a kind of violin called 
/vVm's a horizontal harp (zither .'') <"alled iya/ittji^an. I have never seen 
ati msirument of the latter descri])tion used by Mongols, though 
inshuincnls of this description are employed in China, Japan, and 
Korea. See also I'*, (lienard (/A//zA' //.v/V', ii, 136,^'/ se(/.)\ and Clarke 
(53), who says the commonest instrument among the Kalmuks is a 
two-stringed lute (hnlnhtikn). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 63 

Strikes his guitar, and when they have a great feast they 

all clap their hands, and also dance about to the sound 

of the guitar, the men before the master, the women 

before the mistress. And when the master has drunken, 

then the attendant cries as before, and the guitarist 

stops. Then they drink all around, and sometimes they 

do drink right shamefully and gluttonly.^ And when 

they want to challenge anyone to drink, they take hold 

of him by the ears, and pull so as to distend his throat, 

and they clap and dance before him. Likewise, when 

they want to make a great feasting and jollity with 

someone, one takes a full cup, and two others are on his 

right and left, and thus these three come singing and 

dancing towards him who is to take the cup, and they sing 

and dance before him ; and when he holds out his hand to 

take the cup, they quickly draw it back, and then again 

they come back as before, and so they elude him three 

or four times by drawing away the cup, till he hath 

become well excited and is in good appetite, and then they 

give him the cup, and while he drinks they sing and clap 

their hands and strike with their feet.^ 

Of their food and victuals you must know that they • 
(226) eat all their dead animals without distinction, and 
with such flocks and herds it cannot be but that many 
animals die.'"^ Nevertheless, in summer, so long as lasts 



' Pian de Carpine (637) goes so far as to say that drunkenness was 
honourable among the Mongols. At all events, now, as in old times, 
this people has shown a strong taste for drink. Friar William, in the 
course of his narrative, frequently refers to this fact. 

' Gombojew (664) says it is still customary among the Mongols to 
sing when bringing a guest wine. 

' Pian de Carpine (638) says : "Their food is everything that can be 
eaten ; for they eat dogs, wolves, foxes and horses, and when pushed by 
necessity, human flesh. They also eat abluviojies quae egt'ediuntur de 
iumentis cum pullis. I have also seen them eat lice, saying : " Why 
should I not eat them that eat my son's flesh and drink his blood ?" 
I have seen them also eat rats. They use neither tablecloths nor 
napkins. They have no bread nor oil nor vegetables, nothing but 



64 JOURNEY OF 

their cosmos, that is to say mare's milk, they care not 
for any other food. So then if it happens that an ox or 
a horse dies, they dry its flesh by cutting it into narrow 
strips and hanging it in the sun and the wind, where at 
once and without salt it becomes dry without any evil 

meat, of which, however, they eat so little that other people could 
scarcely exist on it. 

'* They get their hands covered with the grease of the meat, but 
when they have finished eating they wipe them on their boots, on 
the grass, or something else, though the more refined among them 
have some little bits of cloth with which they wipe their hands when 
they have finished eating. One of them takes the food (out of the 
kettle), and another takes the pieces of meat from him on the point of 
a knife, and gives to each one : to some more, to others less, as they 
wish to show them more or less honour" (see also Gombojew, 659). 

The habits of the Mongols are to-day exactly what they were in 
Friar William's time. I may add that it is usual when one has finished 
eating anything out of the little wooden bowl each one carries with 
him, to lick it clean and put it back in the folds of one's gown. 

The charge of cannibalism was frequently made against the Mongols 
by mediaeval writers. The Russian Archbishop, Peter, stated, in 1245, 
before the Council of Lyons, that the Mongols "eat the flesh of mares, 
and dogs, and other abominations, and even when necessary human 
flesh, not raw, however, but cooked ; they drink blood, or water, or 
milk" (Matth. Paris, iv, 386-389). See also the letter of Ivo of 
Narbonne in 1243 to the Archbishop of Bordeaux {ibid.^ iv, 273), and 
the Introductory Notice, supra. 

Joinville (147) states that the Mongols carried their uncooked meat 
" entre leurs celles et leur paniaus (horse blankets), quant le sane en 
est bien hors ; si la manjuent toute crue." This idea that the Mongols 
cooked their meat under their saddles is as old as Ammianus Mar- 
cellinus at least. He says(xxxi, 347), speaking of the Huns, "they are 
satisfied with wild roots for food, or with the flesh of the first animal 
they find ; they mortify it for a while on their horse between their 
thighs" (conf. Schiltberger, 48). Coming down to more recent times, 
we read in Busbeck (Epistolce, 385) that some Goths of the Crimea 
told him that the Tartars ate the raw flesh of dead horses, and that 
they put bits under the saddles of their horses, which they ate with 
delight when it had become heated by the bodies of the horses (see 
also Gombojew, 657 ; and Clarke, 52, 70). 

While there is no doubt that the Mongols, like the Chinese, will eat 
horses, camels, or cattle which have died naturally, I doubt whether 
they ever do it Gxcept/auU de mieiix. Bergmann (ii, 116) agrees with 
this view; see, hovvever Tott (i, 349). VaWtk.^ {Voyages^ i, 512) says 
they have the greatest aversion for wolf's flesh, and in fact for that of 
all other small carnivorous animals. 

I may note here, in connection with the Mongols' way of eating, 
that they never take the scum off the pot in which meat is boiling, 
but eat it with the meat, holding it to be the choicest juice and essence 
of the meat. This custom I find noted by John de Luca in his 
Relation des Tartares (Thevenot, i, 28 ; and also Rockhill, Diary, 207). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 65 

smell.^ With the intestines of horses they make sausages^ 
better than pork ones, and they eat them fresh. The rest 
of the flesh they keep for winter. With the hides of oxen 
they make big jars, which they dry in admirable fashion in 
the smoke.^ With the hind part of the hide of horses they 
make most beautiful shoes. With the flesh of a single 
sheep they give to eat to L men or c ; for they cut it up 
very fine in a platter with salt and water,* for they make 
no other sauce ; and then with the point of a knife or a 
fork which they make for the purpose, like that which we 
use to eat coddled pears or apples, they give to each of the 
bystanders a mouthful or two according to the number of 
the guests. Prior to this, before the flesh of the sheep is 
served, the master takes what pleases him ; and further- 
more if he gives to anyone a special piece, it is the custom 
that he who receives it shall eat it himself, and he may 
not give it to another ; but if he cannot eat it all he 
carries it off" with him, or gives it to his servant if he be 
present, (227) who keeps it; otherwise he puts it away in 
his captargac, which is a square bag which they carry to 
put such things in, in which they store away bones when 



^ Sun-dried meat is used in Mongolia and among the nomads of 
Tibet. It is usually eaten without any other preparation. 

^ Andulges^ in French andouilles. Bergmann (ii, 129) says that the 
Tartar horse-sausages surpass all others. They are made of blood or 
pieces of the intestines {mange nsiiicken). Andouille is made in the 
same way. 

3 Pallas ( K<?y<a:je"'?j, i, 516) describes in detail the manufacture of 
these leather vessels, which are made both of horse and of ox hides, 
the latter being the better. " They leave them in the smoke," he says, 
** two, three, or even four days, when they become as translucid as 
horn." Radloff {Aus Sihirien^ i, 425) says that among the Kirghiz 
they are called saba^ and that they hold four to six buckets (see also 
Rockhill, Diary ^ 172). Those I have there described are of a more 
primitive make. 

* Ibn Batuta (ii, 407) describing a feast given by the Khan of the 
Kipchak, says that a golden or silver ladle containing salt dissolved 
in water was put on each table. Salt dissolved in a little pot-liquor 
is, at the present day, placed before the guests at a Mongol meal. 
The most honoured guest will receive the brisket or the tail of the 
sheep, these being the choicest pieces (conf. Bergmann, ii, 128). 

F 



66 JOURNEY OF 

they have not time to gnaw them well, so that they can 
gnaw them later and that nothing of the food be lost.^ 

This cosmos, which is mare's milk, is made in this wise. 
They stretch a long rope on the ground fixed to two 
stakes stuck in the ground, and to this rope they tie 
toward the third hour the colts of the mares they want to 
milk. Then the mothers stand near their foal, and allow 
themselves to be quietly milked ; and if one be too wild, 
then a man takes the colt and brings it to her, allowing it 
to suck a little ; then he takes it away and the milker 
takes its place. When they have got together a great 
quantity of milk, which is as sweet as cow's as long as it is 
fresh, they pour it into a big skin or bottle, and they set to 
churning it with a stick prepared for that purpose, and 
which is as big as a man's head at its lower extremity and 
hollowed out ; and when they have beaten it sharply it 
begins to boil up like new wine and to sour or ferment, 
and they continue to churn it until they have extracted the 
butter. Then they taste it, and when it is mildly pungent, 



1 Joinville (148) speaking of the way of eating of the Tartars, 
remarks : " Ce que 11 ne peuent manger jetent en un sac de cuir ; et 
quant il ont fain, si oevrent le sac, et manguent touzjours le plus 
viex devant : dont je vi un Coramyn (Korasmian) qui fu des gens 
I'empereour de Perse, qui nous gardoit en la prison, que quant il 
ouvroit son sac nous nous bouchions (le nez), que nous ne pouvions 
durer, pour la puueisie (puanteur) qui issoit du sac." The Dutch 
envoys to Peking, in 1654, having been at an imperial banquet at 
which Mongol chiefs were also present, noted that "it was a pleasure 
to see these famished Tartars filling their leather pouches or skins 
with the hair still on" (Nieuhoff", Embassy, 53-59). It is still 
customary among the Mongols for the guests to dispose of all the 
food placed before them. If one cannot eat all that is given him, 
he may give it to the bystanders, or else he will store it away in 
his gown. I have never seen them use a bag of the description 
referred to. Kabiao;a, or kabtagan, means " pouch or bag" in Mongol ; 
and Mr. F. Grenard has kindly informed me that in Turki works of 
the fifteenth or sixteenth centuries he has found the word K'apto7'ghai, 
meaning " pouch, large purse," and sometimes " cartridge case." 
Pian de Carpine (640) notes that " it is a great sin among them to 
allow any portion of drink or food to be lost : so they may not give a 
bone to the dogs unless they have previously taken the marrow out of 
it." The same habit obtains to-day among the Mongols and Kirghiz. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 67 

they drink it.^ It is pungent on the tongue like rape wine 
when drunk, and when a man has finished drinking, it 
leaves a taste of milk of almonds on the tongue, and it 
makes the inner man most joyful and also intoxicates 
weak heads (228), and greatly provokes urine. They also 
make caracosmos^ that is " black cosmos]' for the use of the 
great lords. It is for the following reason that mare's milk 
curdles not. It is a fact that (the milk) of no animal will 
curdle in the stomach of whose fetus is not found curdled 
milk.3 In the stomach of mares' colts it is not found, so the 
milk of mares curdles not. They churn then the milk until 
all the thicker parts go straight to the bottom, like the 
dregs of wine, and the pure part remains on ,top, and it 
is like whey or white must. The dregs are very white, and 
they are given to the slaves, and they provokes much to 
sleep.* This clear (liquor) the lords drink, and it is 
assuredly a most agreeable drink and most efficacious. 
Baatu has XXX men around his camp at a day's distance, 
each of whom sends him every day such milk of a hun- 
dred mares, that is to say every day the milk of three 
thousand mares, exclusive of the other white milk which 
they carry to others.^ As in Syria the peasants give a 



^ On the preparation of kumiss^ Friar William's cosmos^ conf. Yule 
[Marco Polo^ i, 249) ; Pallas, [Voyages^ i, 506, 511) ; and Atkinson 
\Western Siberia^ 287). 

" Yule {Marco Polo, i, 252) says that " black kumiss" is mentioned 
inWassaf. Bretschneider (^1^/^^. Geog., 249) says Chinese mediaeval 
writers sometimes call the Kipchak Ha-la-chih (Turkish, kalladj, 
"black"), because the people sent black mare's milk as a present to 
the Mongol emperors. I have found no other references to this 
beverage, nor is it, I think, known at the present day. An alcoholic 
drink called araka, or areki, is distilled by the Mongols from kumiss 
(Pallas, Voyages, i, 510). 

' Regula enim est quod nulHus animalis in cu jus fetus ventre lac nan 
invenitur coaguluin coagulaiur. Previous translators have all failed 
to understand this passage. 

* These dregs are called bossa by the Kalmuks ; they are also used 
in tanning skins (Pallas, Voyages, i, 511). 

^ Pian de Carpine (671) refers to the Emperor's herds of mares for 
milking ; and Marco Polo (i, 291) says : " the Khan keeps an immense 

Y 2 



68 JOURNEY OF 

third of their produce, so it is these (Tartars) must bring 
to the ordu of their lords the milk of every third day. As 
to cow's milk they first extract the butter, then they boil it 
down perfectly dry, after which they put it away (229) in 
sheep paunches which they keep for that purpose ; and they 
put no salt in the butter, for on account of the great boil- 
ing down it spoils not. And they keep this for the winter.^ 
What remains of the milk after the butter they let sour 
as much as can be, and they boil it, and it curdles in 
boiling, and the curd they dry in the sun, and it becomes 
as hard as iron slag, and they put it away in bags for the 
winter. In winter time, when milk fails them, they put 
this sour curd, which they call gruity in a skin and pour 
water on it, and churn it vigorously till it dissolves in the 
water, which is made sour by it, and this water they drink 
instead of milk.^ They are most careful not to drink pure 
water. 

The great lords have villages in the south, from which 
millet and flour are brought to them for the winter. The poor 
procure (these things) by trading sheep and pelts. The 
slaves fill their bellies with dirty water, and with this they 
are content. They catch also rats, of which many kinds 



stud of white horses and mares ; in fact more than 10,000 of them, and 
all pure white without a speck. The milk of the mares is drunk by 
himself and his family, and by none else." 

1 The Mongols of the present day prepare and keep their butter in 
the same way. Bergmann (ii, 121) remarks that they make butter of 
cow's, ewe's or mare's milk, but the soft mare's milk butter does not 
keep as well as the other two kinds. 

- In another passage Friar William more correctly transcribes the 
name^rw/. It is the ktirt of the Kirghiz (Radloff, Aus Sibirien^ i, 428), 
the kuriit of the Afghans, the chura of the Tibetans. Marco Polo (i, 
254) says of it : '' They also have milk dried into a paste to carry with 
them, and when they need food they put this in water and beat it up 
till it dissolves, and then drink it." This drink is called shuurmik 
among some of the Tartars (Pallas, Voyages^ i, 511, 699; see also 
Radloff, op. cit., i, 298 ; Yule, Marco Polo, i, 257 ; and Tott, i, 333). 
In the Koko nor country and Tibet, \M\^kriit or chura is put in tea to 
soften, and then eaten either alone or mixed with parched barley meal 
{tsamba). 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 69 

abound here. Rats with long tails they eat not, but give 
them to their birds.^ They eat mice and all kinds of rats 
which have short tails. There are also many marmots, 
which are called sogur^ and which congregate in one hole 
in winter, XX or XXX together, and sleep for six months ; 
these (230) they catch in great numbers.'^ There are also 
conies,^ with a long tail like a cat's, and on the end of the 
tail they have black and white hairs. They have also 
many other kinds of small animals good to eat, which they 
know very well how to distinguish. I saw no deer there. 
I saw few hares, many gazelles. Wild asses I saw in great 
numbers, and these are like mules. I saw also another 
kind of animal which is called arcaliy^ which has quite the 
body of a sheep, and horns bent like a ram's, but of such 
size that I could hardly lift the two horns with one hand, 
and they make of these horns big cups. They have hawks 
and peregrine falcons^ in great numbers, which they all 
carry on their right hand. And they always put a little 
thong around the hawk's neck, which hangs down to the 
middle of its breast, by which, when they cast it at its 

- Here, of course, their hawks, eagles {barkut)^ and other hunting- 
birds are meant. The best hawks appear to have come from the 
Upper Yenisei and the Lower Amur (d'Ohsson, i, 104). 

'^ Probably the Mus citillus^ the suslik of the Russians, which 
Pallas says the Mongols are very fond of eating. He says also that 
they like the flesh of badgers and marmots {Voyages^ i, 197, 512). 
Mr. Grenard tells me that soghur^ more usually written sour in Turki, 
is the ordinary name of the marmot. 

3 CuniculL Marco Polo (i, 244) states that the Mongols are very 
fond of " Pharaoh's rats,'* which is supposed to be some variety of 
gerboa. 

* On p. 278 he gives the correct Mongol name, culan {Ichiihvi)^ 
of this animal. He is the first western traveller to mention it by 
that name, and the same remark applies to the argali^ the Ovis 
Poll. Marco Polo (i, 181) speaks of the wild sheep of Badakshan, 
whose horns were " good six palms in length" (see Yule's remarks, 
op.cit.,\, 185). 

^ Falcones^ girfaus erodios (or herodios). Bergeron has rendered 
the latter term by " herodiens et faucons." The same words occur, 
however, in Marco Polo ; and Yule (i, 262), renders them, no doubt 
conecily, by " peregrine falcons" (see Ducange, 1131, s. v. Herodius). 




JO JOURNEY OF 

prey, they pull down with the left hand the head and 
breast of the hawk, so that it be not struck by the wind 
and carried upward. So it is that they procure a large 
part of their food by the chase.^ 

Of their clothing and customs you must know, that from 
Cataia, and other regions of the east, and also from Persia 
and other regions of the south, (231) are brought to them 
silken and golden stuffs and cloth of cotton, which they 
wear in summer.^ From Ruscia, Moxel, and from greater 
Bulgaria and Pascatir, which is greater Hungary, and Ker- 
kis,^ all of which are countries to the north and full of forests, 
and which obey them, are brought to them costly furs of 
many kinds, which I never saw in our parts, and which 
they wear in winter. And they always make in winter 
at least two fur gowns, one with the fur against the body, 
the other with the fur outside exposed to the wind and snow; 
these latter are usually of the skins of wolves or foxes or 
papions ;* and while they sit in the dwelling they have 



^ Falconry is still a favourite amusement among the Mongols, 
Kirghiz, and the Manchus of China, At the present day hawks are 
carried on the left hand, if small, or on the left forearm if the birds 
are large (see Marco Polo, i, 384, 388 ; Yule, Cathay. 135 ; Bergmann, 
ii, 187; Radloff, A us Sibirien^ i, 466; and Rockhill, Diary ^ 13). 
Anthony Jenkinson (73) says the Tartars used to kill wild horses 
with their hawks. 

^ Panni serici et aurei et tele de wambasio. The first is probably the 
same as the stuff called nacchetti di seta e doro by Pegolotti, which, 
he says, western traders went all the way co China to get (Heyd, 
ii, 698) ; and which Friar William in another passage (317) calls 
nasic. The tele de wambasio (or bombasio) is called elsewhere by our 
traveller tele de cotione ; Joinville (107) also speaks of '' telle de coton!^ 
Heyd (ii, 612) mentions the cotton of Asia Minor, Persia, India, and 
Egypt as the most esteemed in the Middle Ages ; the cotton fabrics 
of Persia and India were especially fine. 

^ Kerkis in this passage designates the Kirghiz ; elsewhere our 
author uses the same word as the name of the Cherkess. 

■* Papionibus. In another passage (315) he says Mangu Khan sent 
him three gowns, de pcllibiis papio7ium. The papion — for the word 
is still used in P>ench — is a baboon, the cynocephalus papion. I 
cannot imagine, however, that monkey skins were ever much used as 
furs among the Mongols ; the supply must have been small, the cost 
considerable. There is a species of baboon, 1 believe, found in the 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 71 

another lighter one. The poor m^ke their outside (gowns) 
of dog and kid (skins). 

When they want to chase wild animals, they gather 
together in a great multitude and surround the district in 
which they know the game to be, and gradually they come 
closer to each other till they have shut up the game in 
among them as in an enclosure, and then they shoot them 
with their arrows.^ They make also breeches with furs.^ 
The rich furthermore wad their clothing with silk stuffing, 
which is extraordinarily soft, light and warm. The poor 
line their clothes with cotton cloth, or with the fine wool 
which they are able to pick out of the coarser. With this 
coarser they make felt to cover their houses and coffers, 
and also for bedding. With wool and a (232) third of 
horse hair mixed with it they make their ropes. They also 



mountains north of Peking, and another kind of monkey, with long 
reddish hair on parts of its body, in Eastern Tibet and Ssii-ch'uan. 
The skin of the latter is used as a fur by the Chinese, though not 
commonly. I am inclined to thind that the papion of Friar Rubruck 
was a badger, or some variety of. fox. Ibn Batuta (ii, 401) says 
the most prized fur in the Kipchak was ermine, next sable, then grey 
squirrel. Ibn Alathir (xiv, 456) speaks of the Kipchak selling at 
Sudak borthasi or black fox, beaver, grey squirrel, or other furs. 

^ On the great hunts of the Mongols, see Marco Polo (i, 384, 386- 
388) ; Yule {Caihoy^ i, 135) ; and d'Ohsson (i, 321). 

2 The Mongols of the present day commonly wear in winter trousers 
of sheep or lamb skins, with the wool on the inside. The Kirghiz 
wear in riding huge baggy trousers called chimbar^ into which they 
tuck their gowns. Pian de Carpine (614) thus describes the Mongol 
dress : " The clothes of the men and women are of one pattern. They 
do not use capes, cloaks, hoods, or skins {pellibu^) ; but they wear 
tunics of bukeran, purple or baldakin, made in the following fashion. 
They are open from top to bottom, and double over the breast ; on the 
left side they are fastened with a tape, and on the right with three, 
and furthermore on the left side they are open to the armpit. They 
make fur gowns of all kinds after the same pattern ; but ihey wear 
the outside fur gown with the fur outside, and it is open behind, with 
a tail down to the knees." 

The purple, baldakin, and bukeran, of Friar John are probably, as 
pointed out by d'Avezac (525), Rubruck's *' silk and gold stuff, and 
cloth of cotton." Though there seems little doubt ihixi bukercm was 
a light cotton or stuff, muslin our author (290) speaks of a stift 
bukeran {stamina rigidata). (See also Yule Marco Polo, i, 48, and 
supra, p. 19). , 



72 JOURNEY OF 

make with felt covers, saddle-cloths and rain cloaks ; so 
they use a great deal of wool.^ You have seen the costume 
of the men. 

The men shave a square on the tops of their heads, and 
from the front corners (of this square) they continue the 
shaving to the temples, passing along both sides of the 
head. They shave also the temples and the back of the 
neck to the top of the cervical cavity, and the forehead as 
far as the crown of the head, on which they leave a tuft of 
hair which falls down to the eyebrows. They leave the 
hair on the sides of the head, and with it they make 
tresses which they plait together to the ears.^ 

And the dress of the girls differs not from the costume 
of the men, except that it is somewhat longer. But on the 
day following her marriage, (a woman) shaves the front 
half of her head, and puts on a tunic as wide as a nun's 



1 Felt is still applied to all these and many other purposes by the 
Mongols. They mix horse-hair with the wool in making rof>es, so 
that they may not stretch when wet, and to prevent them from getting 
kinkled. On the manufacture of felt, see Atkinson {Upper and Lower 
A moor ^ 42), and Rockhill {Ethnology^ 700). 

2 Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxi, 420^) says : " They shave 
across the top of the head and both temples to the ears, so that the 
shaved part of the head has the shape of a horseshoe. They also 
shave the back part. The rest of the hair they wear long and make 
into plaits behind the ears. And all those among them shave their 
heads in this fashion, whether they be Romans (/.^., Greeks), Saracens, 
or others." Pian de Carpine (611) describes the Mongols as follows : 
** They differ in their appearance from all the rest of mankind, for they 
are broader between the eyes and cheeks than other men, and their 
cheekbones stand out a good deal from the jaws. Their noses are flat 
and small ; they have small eyes, with lids drawn up to the eyebrows. 
They are usually small in the waist, a few only excepted ; nearly all 
are of short stature. Nearly all of them have but very little beard ; a 
few have some hairs on their upper lip and as a beard, and this they 
never shave. They wear crowns (of hair) on the tops of their heads, 
like clerks (among us), and from one ear to the other, for a width of 
about three fingers, they shave it all as a general thing, right round 
the crown. On their foreheads they shave off all (the hair) for a space 
of two fingers in breadth ; the hair left behind the crown and the 
shaven part (on the forehead) they let grow down to the eyebrows, 
while they let the hair on either side grow longer than in front. The 
rest of their hair they let grow like women, making two plaits of it, 
tying them each behind the ear. They have also small feet" 



FKIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 73 

gown, but everyway larger and longer, open before, and 
tied on the right side. For in this the Tartars differ from 
the Turks ; the Turks tie their gowns on the left, the 
Tartars always on the right.^ Furthermore they have a 
head-dress, which they call bocca^ made of bark, or 
such other light material as they can find, and it is big and 
as much as two hands can span around, and is a cubit and 
more high, and square like the capital of a column. This 
bocca they cover (233) with costly silk stuff, and it is hollow 
inside, and on top of the capital, or the square on it, they 
put a tuft of quills or light canes also a cubit or more in 
length. And this tuft they ornament at the top with pea- 
cock feathers, and round the edge (of the top) with feathers 
from the mallard's tail, and also with precious stones. 
The wealthy ladies wear such an ornament on their heads, 
and fasten it down tightly with an amess, for which there 
is an opening in the top for that purpose, and inside they 
stuff their hair, gathering it together on the back of the 
tops of their heads in a kind of knot, and putting it in the 
bocca. which they afterwards tic down tightly under the 
chin.*^ So it is that when several ladies are riding together. 



* The Mongols, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetans, and I believe most of 
the other nations of northern Asia of the present day, fold their gowns 
to the right across them. The Chinese annals of the sixth century 
note the peculiar habit of the Turkish tribes, of folding their gowns 
across them to the left. " They button to the left {tso jcfi)^^ the 
Chou shu^ bk. 50, 3, says of them. 

*^ Vincent of Heauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxv, 42 it^), describes the 
bogtak^ but does not mention it by its name. Pian de Carpine (614) 
says : " Married women wear a very full gown, open in front down to 
the ground. On their heads they wear a round thing made of twigs 
or bark, and it is an ell in height, and finishes on top in a square ; and 
it grows in size all the way up to the top, and on the summit of it is a 
long slender rod of gold, silver or wood, or else a feather. And it is 
fastened on to a felt cap {pillolum) which reaches to the shoulders : 
and the cap as well as this thing is covered with bukeran or purple or 
baldakin ; and they never go before men without this thing {instru men- 
turn) on, and by it they are distinguished from other women. The 
maidens and young women can be distinguished from the men with 
great difficulty, for in :ill rc;.pccts tlicy arc dressed like them. They 



74 JOURNEY OF 

and one sees them from afar, they look like soldiers, 
helmets on head and lances erect. For this bocca looks 
like a helmet, and the tuft above it is like a lance. And 
all the women sit their horses astraddle like men. And they 
tie their gowns with a piece of blue silk stuff at the 
waist and they wrap another band at the breasts, and tie a 
piece of white stuff below the eyes which hangs down to 
the breast.^ And the women there are wonderfully fat, 
and she who has the least nose is held the most beauti- 
ful. They disfigure themselves horribly by painting their 



(i.e.^ the men) have caps which are not like those of other nations, but 
we are unable to clearly describe their shapes." 

Quatrem^re (102) quotes a numj^er of Persian authors who use the 
word bogtak to distinguish the head-dress worn exclusively by Mongol 
princesses (see also Ibn Batuta, ii, 379, 388 ; Cordier, Odoric^ 369, 409 ; 
Yule, Cathay^ 131 ; and Clavijo, 154). Such high head-dresses seem to 
have been worn at various times by many Asiatic peoples or tribes ; 
whether they were quite like the Mongol bogtak or not I am unable to 
say. Wei shu (bk. 102, 13), speaking of an Uigur pebple called the 
Yen-ta, says : " It was the custom of the Yen-ta for brothers to have 
the same wife : if a man had no brothers, his wife wore a head-dress 
(or cap) with but one horn. If he had brothers, she added as many 
points (or horns) as he had brothers." Yiian-chuang describes in 
about the same terms the head-dress of the women of Himatala. who 
may, by the way, be the Yen-ta of the Wei shu (Julien, Voyages^ ii, 197). 
The nearest modern approach to the Mongol bogtak seems to me to 
be the high head-dress, covered with bark or red cloth, of the Votiak 
women of Kasan (Pallas, Voyages^ v, 32). We find another head- 
dress of like description, which may owe its origin to the bogtak^ 
worn at the present time by the Christian women of Urfah. between 
Diarbekir and Aleppo (Percy Badger, i, 329). The head-dress of 
the Kirghiz women, and the high Flemish head-dress called hennin^ 
introduced into France by Isabeau de Baviere, should not be omitted 
in this enumeration. 

1 Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxv, 42 1<^) describes the 
gorgeous harness of the big stout palfreys the rich Mongol ladies rode. 
" All the wives of great Barons," he says, *' are dressed in samites or 
golden purples (purpuris deauratis), as are their husbands. Usually, 
however, all women are clothed in boqueram (gowns) made with many 
plaits at the waist .... They have also another kind of gown of 
white woollen sXwi( (pa^tno laneo albo)^ u-hich all Tartars put on over 
their clothes when it rains and in winter." Vincent is here quoting from 
Friar Simon of St. Quentin. The Mongols referred to lived in Asia 
Minor or Persia. The Kirghiz women still cover their faces when 
riding and exposed to the cutting wind. 



FRIAK WILLIAM OF KUBRUCK. 75 

faces.^ They never lie down in bed when having their 
children.^ 

(234) It is the duty of the women to drive the carts, get 
the dwellings on and ofif them, milk the cows, make butter 
and gtuity and to dress and sew skins, which they do with a 
thread made of tendons. They divide the tendons into fine 
shreds, and then twist them into one long thread. They 
also sew the boots, the socks and the clothing.^ They 
never wash clothes, for they say that God would be 
angered thereat, and that it would thunder if they hung 
them up to dry.* They will even beat those they find 
washing them. Thunder they fear extraordinarily ; and 



^ Conf., in/ru^ his description of Scatay's wife. The custom of 
rubbing the face with unguents, usually black, to protect the skin from 
the effects of the wind, has been practised in northern Asia for a long 
time. As early as the seventh century, we hear of it obtaining in 
Tibet (Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, 214). 

^ The Kalmuk women have their children in a crouching position ; 
the Kirghiz bring forth theirs kneeling (H. Ploss, Das Wcid., ii, 276). 
In China, Japan, Mongolia and Tibet, a crouching position is, I 
believe, the rule. Pallas ( Voyages, i, 570), says that when a Kalmuk 
woman is in childbirth, a lama is called in who reads prayers, while 
the husband stretches a net round the outside of the tent, and beats 
the air with a club till the child is born ; crying the while ^art chetkir, 
"be off, devil I" 

^ Pian de Carpine (643) says : " The maids and women ride and race 
on horseback as skilfully as the men ; we saw them also carrying bows 
and arrows. The women are able to stay on horseback for a very 
long time as well as the men ; they ride with very short stirrups. 
They take good care of their horses, but then they are careful of all 
their things. Their women do all the work : they make the fur gowns, 
the clothes, the shoes and boots, and everything else that is made of 
leather. They drive the carts and load (rcparant) them, they load 
the camels, and they are most active and strong in all their work. 
All the women wear trowsers (fcmoraiia), and some of them shoot 
with the bow like men." All writers of the period state that the 
Mongol women accompanied the men into the battles, were line 
archers, and fought as bravely as they (Matth. Paris, iv, 388 ; 
d'Ohsson, i, 329). The domestic duties of the Mongol women are the 
same to-day as they were in Kriar William's time (see Hergmann, ii, 
165-167, and Radloff, Aus SidiricN, i, 295-297). 

■* Conf d'Ohsson, i, 409 ; ii, 93. The Mongols of the present day still 
have this superstition (Rockhill, Diary, 154, 207). Rashideddin says 
that they believed any liquor spilt in the tent, or wet boots put to dry 
in the sun, would attract lightning (d'Ohsson, ii, 618). 



76 JOURNEY OF 

when it thunders they will turn out of their dwellings all 
strangers, wrap themselves in black felt, and thus hide 
themselves till it has passed away.^ Furthermore, they 
never wash their bowls, but when the meat is cooked they 
rinse out the dish in which they are about to put it with 
some of the boiling broth from the kettle, which they pour 
back into it.^ They also make the felt and cover the 
houses.^ 

The rrien make bows and arrows, manufacture stirrups 
and bits, make saddles, do the carpentering on (the frame- 
work of) their dwellings and the carts ; they take care of 
the horses, milk the mares, churn the cosmos or mare's 
milk, make the skins in which it is put ; they also look 
after the camels and load them. Both sexes look after 
the sheep and goats, sometimes the men, othertimes the 
women, milking them.* 

They dress skins with a thick mixture of sour ewe's 

^ Pian de Carpine (632) says : " If anyone is killed by thunder, all 
the people who were in the camp (at the time) must pass through fire. 
The tent, bed, cart, felt and clothing, and everything of the kind they 
have will be touched by no one till they have been purified." Schilt- 
berger (50) says that among the Tartars a man killed by lightning 
was held to be a saint. 

2 Pian de Carpine (639) says : " They never wash their bowls, and if 
sometimes they rinse them out with the pot liquor, they pour it back 
into the pot on the meat. In like fashion they wash their pots and 
cooking utensils." The Mongols still follow this expeditious plan. 
They never wash the pails in which they keep milk or curd : it would 
bring bad luck ; but they leave on the inside a thick crust of hardened 
curd, mixed with hair and dung (conf Atkinson, Western Siberia^ 
286 ; see also supra^ p. 64). 

^ Cooperiunt domos. By this, I take it, is to be understood that the 
women put the sheets of felt in place over the framework of the tents 
each time they were set up. I have not noticed that this work was 
exclusively reserved to the women among the Mongols of the present 
day. 

•* Pian de Carpine (643) says : " The men look after nothing at all 
but their arrows, though they give a little attention to the flocks. 
They hunt and practise archery : for all of them from the smallest to 
the biggest arc good archers, and as soon as their children are two or 
three years old they begin to ride, to manage horses, and to race. 
And they give them bows according to their age, and teach them tO 
shoot : they arc very agile and daring." . j..--,-^. 



■/ 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. JJ 

milk and salt.^ When they want to wash their hands or 
head, they fill their mouths (235) with water, which they let 
trickle on to their hands, and in this way they also wet 
their hair and wash their heads.^ 

As to their marriages, you must know that no one among 
them has a wife unless he buys her ; so it sometimes 
happens that girls are well past marriageable age 
before they marry, for their parents always keep them 
until they sell them. They observe the first and second 
degrees of consanguinity, but no degree of affinity ; thus 
(one person) will have at the same time or successively two 
sisters.^ Among them no widow marries, for the following 



* Lade ovium acetoso inspissate et salso. Pallas (F<?y^;frj, i, 514) 
says that the Kalmuk women tan skins with the residuum of milk left 
after the distillation of araka and a little salt. The skins are after- 
wards softened and smoked. " Sometimes," he adds, ** they use a 
mixture of ashes and salt water, and after the skins have been dried 
and smoked, they are rubbed with a mixture of putrid sheep or ox 
liver and milk." The Mongols and Tibetans of the Koko nor country 
soften the skins with sour cream. 

'-^ This mode of washing the face and hands is still in vogue in 
Mongolia and northern China. Persian authors say that the Yassak^ 
or Ordinances of Chingis Khan, ordered all Mongols not to put their 
hands in any water, but to take it up in their mouths to wash with 
(Quatrem^re, op. cit.^ 436). 

^ Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxvi, 420^) states that a Tartar 
did not consider a woman his wife till she had conceived or borne a 
child. If she proved barren, he might send her away. Furthermore, 
a husband did not get the wife's dower till she had borne him a son, 
nor did the woman receive it from her father and mother till she had 
a child. 

Pian de Carpine (612) says of the Mongols' marriage customs : "Each 
one hath as many wives as he can support ; some have a hundred, 
some fifty, some ten, some more, others fewer. And as a general rule 
they marry all their relatives except their own mother, their daughters 
and sisters by the same mother. They may however marry their 
sisters through their father, and also their father's wives after his 
death. A younger brother, or some other younger member of the 
family, is expected on the death of his elder to take the brother's wife. 
All other women without any distinction they take as wives, and they 
buy them right dearly from their parents. After the death of their 
husbands (the women) do not easily make second marriages, except 
some one wishes to take his step- mother as a wife" (see also Marco 
Polo, i, 222, 245 ; Radloff, op. cit., i, 476 ; and Rockhill, Diary ^ 1 56). The 
Chinese annals attribute the above custon)s to a number of tribes of 
northern Asia, to the Turks, to the Tu-ku-hun, a people probably of 



78 JOURNEY OF 

reason : they believe that all who serve them in this life 
shall serve them in the next, so as regards a widow 
they believe that she will always return to her first hus- 
band after death. Hence this shameful custom prevails 
among them, that sometimes a son takes to wife all his 
father\s wives, except his own mother ; for the orda of the 
father and mother always belongs to the youngest son, 
so it is he who must provide for all his father's wives who 
come to him with the paternal household, and if he 
wishes it he uses them as wives, for he esteems not himself 
injured if they return to his father after death.^ When 
then anyone has made a bargain with another to take his 
daughter, the father of the girl gives a feast, and the girl 
flees to her relatives and hides there. Then the father 
says : " Here, my daughter is yours : take her wheresoever 
you find her." Then he searches for her with his friends 
till he finds her, and he must take her by force and carry 
her off with a semblance of violence to his house.^ 



Kitan (or Moho) descent, to the T'ang-hsiang, a Tibetan people, and 
to others {Chou shu, bk. 50 ; Vang shu^ bk. 221), Of the Turks the 
Chmi shu says they could marry in the ascending lines of affinity, but 
not in the descending. These customs still prevail among the Kafirs 
(Robertson, Kafirs of the Hindu Kush, 535 ; see also Elias, Tarikh-i- 
rashidi^ 251). 

1 To cite but one example of this custom among the Mongols : 
Tutukai (or Budugai), fourth daughter of Hulagu, married in the first 
place Tenker Kurkan, then his son Sulamuh, then his son Jijak 
Kurkan (Howorth, History^ ill, 213). Conf. Gombojew, p. 652, and 
Quatrem^/e, op. cit.^ 89, 92. Clarke {Travels, 52) says that in his time 
(1799) a Kalmuk widow became the property of her husband's brother, 
if he chose to claim her (see also Haxthausen, Trafiscnucasia, 403, 
who notes this custom among the Orsethes). Plan de Carplne (642) 
notes that there was no difference between the sons of the first wife 
and those of concubines as to inheritance and other rights. It is stil 
customary among the Kirghiz for the youngest son to receive as his 
inheritance, besides a portion of the flocks and herds, his father^s 
winter camp with its pasturages {kishlak) (Radloff, op. cit., i, 416). 
Blackstone {Commentaries ii, 83) says this custom once prevailed in 
Scotland. 

2 Clarke {op. cit., 70), speaking of the marriage customs of the Kal- 
muks, says : **A girl is first mounted, who rides off at full speed. Her 
lover pursues, and if he overtakes her she becomes his wife." Wei 




FRIAK WILLIAM OK RUBKUCK. 79 

(236) 

JS^^S to their justice you must know that when two 
men fight together no one dares interfere, even 
a father dare not aid a son ; but he who has 
the worse of it may appeal to the court of the lord, 
and if anyone touches him after the appeal, he is put 
to death. But action must be taken at once without 
any delay, and the injured one must lead him (who 
has offended) as a captive. They inflict capital punish- 
ment on no one unless he be taken in the act or con- 
fesses.^ When one is accused by a number of 
persons, they torture him so that he confesses. They 
punish homicide with capital punishment," and also co- 



shu^ (bk. 103, 15) speaking of the Kao-ch'c (Turks or Uij^^urs), says the 
man (Drought cattle and horses to the camp in which he wished to choose 
a wife, and took the one who could sit a horse which he tried to make 
throw her. This may be a survival of an older custom, in which the 
bride fled with — or was carried off by — her lover. Tang shu (bk. 219, 
7) says of Kitan (or Sien-pi) of Shih-wei, probably of the same stock as 
the Mongols, that the man began by serving the family of the woman 
for three years ; then a portion of her property was given to the woman 
he had chosen for a wife, and he carried her off to the sound of drums 
and with dancing. When the husband died, the woman did not marry 
again. On the social organisation of the Mongols of the present day, 
see Kopernicki {Jouni. Anthrop. Inst.^ i, 413, ct scq.)\ Cirenard {pp. cit,. 
ii, 249, 250) states that in Chinese Turkestan, especially among the 
Kazak, the idea of abduction of the bride is still clearly observed in 
the marriage ceremonies. 

1 According to the Chinese code of the present dynasty, the death 
penalty cannot be applied unless the crimmal confesses. Torture is 
permitted, however, to extract it. 

2 Chingis Khan's 67^/4' yass(il\ or ( ircat Ordinances, punished with 
death homicide, robbery, adultery, fornication, sodomy ; also him who 
lost for the third time money entrusted to him, him who received stolen 
goods or runaway sl.'ives, him who picked up a weapon in battle and 
did not restore it to its owner, him who used sorcery to another's injury, 
him who interfered in a duel (d'Ohsson, i,4o8). Haithon (///>/. Orient.., 
72) says the Mongols considered it a mortal sin to leave the bit in a 
horse's mouth when he was feeding. Pian de Carpine (641) menticms 
capital punishment for adultery, brigandage, and open larceny. lie 
also remarks (635) : '* Their women are chaste and nothing is heard 
among them of lewdness ; but some of the expressions they use in 
joking are very shameful and coarse." They have not changed since 
then. Marco Polo (i, 259) says that for " horse-stealing or some other 
great matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword. Howbeit, if he 



8o JOURNEY OF 

habiting with a woman not one's own. By not one's own, 
I mean not his wife or bondwoman, for with one's slaves 
one may do as one pleases. They also punish with death 
grand larceny, but as for petty thefts, such as that of a 
sheep, so long as one has not repeatedly been taken in the 
act, they beat him cruelly, and if they administer an 
hundred blows they must use an hundred sticks :^ I speak 
of the case of those beaten under order of authority. In 
like manner false envoys, that is to say persons who pass 
themselves off as ambassadors but who are not, are put 
to death. Likewise sorcerers, of whom I shall however 
tell you more, for such they consider to be witches. 

When anyone dies, they lament with loud wailing, 
then they are free, for they pay no taxes for the year. 
And if anyone is present at the death of an adult, he may 
not enter the dwelling even of Mangu Chan for the year. 
If it be a child who dies, he may not enter it for a month. 
(237) Beside the tomb of the dead they always leave a 
tent if he be one of the nobles, that is of the family of 
Chingis, who was their first father and lord. Of him who 
is dead the burying place is not known.^ And always 



be able to ransom himself by paying nine times the value of the thing 
stolen, he is let off." Ibn Batuta (ii, 364), referring to the Kipchak, 
says : " He in whose possession is found a stolen horse, must return it 
to its owner, and give him nine like it ; if he cannot do this, his 
children are seized ; but if he has no children, he is slaughtered like a 
sheep." 

1 Marco Polo (i, 259) says : "When anyone has committed a petty 
theft, they give him, under the orders of authority, seven blows of a 
stick, or seventeen, or thirty-seven, or forty-seven, and so forth, always 
increasing by tens in proportion to the injury done, and running up to 
one hundred and seven." 

2 Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxvi, 421^) says : ** If the 
dead Tartar has been a rich and mighty man, he is buried in 
his most costly robes, and in some hidden place remote from a'l, so 
that he be not despoiled of his raiment." He goes on to say that the 
friends of the deceased kill his horse and skin it, fill the skin with 
straw, and suspend it by poles over his tomb. They eat the flesh, and 
keep up their lamentations over the deceased for 30 days, more or 
less. " There are some Tartars," he adds, "and some Christians also 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 8 1 

around these places where they bury their nobles there is a 
camp with^en watching the tombs. I did not understand 
that they bury treasure with their dead. The Comans 

but very bad ones, among whom the sons, on the father getting old 
and worn out by age, give him a certain fatty substance (pinguia) like 
sheep's tail to eat, which oppresses him and he is easily suffocated. 
When the father is dead, they burn the body and collect the ashes, 
which they keep as something precious. And every day when they 
eat they sprinkle their food with this powder" (see Gombojew, 658). 

Pian de Carpine (628) says : " When a person is dead, if he is of the 
nobles, he is buried secretly in the steppe wherever it pleaseth them : 
he is buried however with his tent (staiio) and seated in the middle of it, 
and they put a table before him, and a bowl full of meat, and a jar full 
of mare's milk ; and a mare with her foal is buried with him, also a 
horse with bit and saddle. And another horse they eat, and fill the 
skin with straw and put it on two or four poles over him, so that he 
may have a dwelling m the other world, and a mare to give him milk, 
, and that he may increase his horse herd, and have horses on which to 
ride. And the bones of the horse which they eat they burn for the 
good of his soul. And often the women come together to burn bones 
for the souls of the men, as I have seen with my own eyes, and have 
been told by others. I saw also that Occodai-can, the father of the 
present Emperor (Kuyuk), had let a small tree grow for his soul, and 
he ordered that no one was to cut a branch of it, and whoever did, as 
I found out myself, was beaten, despoiled and badly treated. So it 
was that though I was greatly in need of something to whip my horse 
with, I did not dare cut a switch there. Furthermore they bury gold 
and silver with a person. They break up the cart on which he was 
carried, destroy his dwelling, and his name may not be pronounced by 
anyone for three generations." D'Ohsson (ii, 60) states that when 
Tului, son of Chingis, died, a mirror (tului) was called gueuzugu^ the 
use of the word tului having been tabooed. Various other cases 
might be cited (see Rockhill, Diary ^ 160). 

Friar John adds (630) : " Some of their great people are buried in 
another fashion. They go secretly into the steppe (campo)^ and having 
removed the grass in a certain spot together with its roots, they make a 
great pit, and in the side of this pit they make a grave underground ; and 
the slave which he loved best they put under him, and he lies there so 
long under him that he is about to draw his last breath, when they take 
him out to let him breathe ; and this they do three times, and if he 
escapes alive he is free thereafter, and does what he pleases, and is a 
great man in the camp, even among the relatives (of his dead master). 
The dead man they place in the grave made in the side of the pit as 
explained above ; then they fill up the pit which is in front of the grave, 
and put back the grass as it was before, so that no one may find the 
place afterwards. There is another mode of burial similar to the above, 
except that they leave a tent above the grave on the steppe. 

" In their country there are two cemeteries. The one m which they 
bury the emperors, chiefs and all the nobles : and wherever they may 
be, whenever it is possible, they carry them thither ; much gold and 
silver is buried with them. The other is that in which were buried all 
those who were killed in Hungary ; for a great many were killed there. 



/ 



82 JOURNEY t>F 

raise a great tumulus over the dead, and set up a stittue to 
him, its face to the east, and holding a cup in its hatid at the 
height of the navel. They make also pyramids to the rich, 
that is to say, little pointed structures, and in some places I 
saw great tiled covered towers, and in others stone houses, 
though there were no stones thereabout. Over a person 
recently dead I saw hung on long poles the skins of xvi 
horses, four facing each quarter of the world ; and they 
had placed also cosmos for him to drink, and meat for him 
to eat, and for all that they said of him that he had been 
baptised. / Farther east I saw other tombs in shape like 
great yards covered with big flat stones, some round, some 
square, and four high vertical stones at the corners facing 
the four quarters of the world.^ When anyone sickens 
he lies on his couch, and places a sign over his dwelling 

To that cemetery no one dare come except the guardians who are 
placed there to watch it ; and if anyone should come there, he would be 
laid hold of, despoiled and beaten and very badly treated. It happened 
that we ourselves in ignorance of this entered the bounds of the cemetery 
of those who had been killed in Hungary, when they came on us and 
wanted to shoot us with their arrows ; but as we were ambassadors 
and did not know the customs of the country, they let us go." 

The appellation of " first father" applied to Chingis is but the trans- 
lation of his Chinese dynastic title of Vai tsu^ " the great ancestor. 
Most founders of dynasties in China since the third century, B.C., have 
either borne this title or that of Kao tsu, " Exalted ancestor." In 
the letter of Arghun to the Pope in 1285, he refers to "Gingiscam 
primo patri omnium Tartarorum" (Chabot,///V/. de Mar-JabcUaha^ 190). 

See also, on the burial customs of the Mongols and Comans, Ibn 
Batuta, iv, 301 ; Lebeau, Bas Empire^ xvii, 397 ; and Palladius, 11, 12. 
The Kirghiz still bury their dead in a recess dug in the side of the 
grave (Sven Hedin, op, cit.^ i, 420). Conf. Journ, Roy, Astat. Soc.j 
n. s., xii, 443. 

1 The tumuli of Southern Russia and of Northern Asia, the tombs 
of Comans, Turks and of other peoples who have at various times occu- 
pied these vast regions, have been described by most travellers who 
have visited these countries (Atkinson, IVes/. Siberia^ 168, 235 ; also his 
Upper and Lower Amoor^ 39, 157, 179, 191, etc.) One dome-shaped 
tomb he describes (p. 191) was 37 ft. high. In a place near Kopal the 
tombs covered an area of four miles by one. Radloff {A us Sibirien, 
ii, 104 et seq\ gives a detailed description of similar tombs, and of 
the interior arrangement and contents of a number which he opened. 

The Chou shu (bk. L) says that it was customary among the ancient 
Turks to place around a tomb as many upright stones as the deceased 
. had killed persons in his lifetime. ; , . 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 83 

that there fs a sick person therein, and that no one shall 
enter. So no one visits a sick person, save him who 
serves him.^ And when anyone from the great ordu is ill, 
they place (238) guards all round the ordu, who permit no 
one to pass those bounds. For they fear lest an evil spirit 
or some wind should come with those who enter. They 
call, however, their priests, who are these same soothsayers. 




;HEN therefore we found ourselves among these 
barbarians, it seemed to me, as I said before, 
that I had been transported into another world. 
They surrounded us on their horses, after having made 
us wait for a long while seated in the shade under our 
carts. The first question was whether we had ever 
been among them before. Having answered that we 
had not, they began to beg most impudently for some 
of our provisions. We gave them some of the biscuit 
and wine that we had brought with us from the city,^ 
and when they had drunk one flagon they asked for 
another, saying that a man enters not a house with one 
foot only ; but we gave it not, excusing ourselves on the 
score of the smallness of our stock. Then they asked 
whence we came and where we wanted to go. 1 told them 
what I have already said : that we had heard that Sartach 



* Plan de Carpine (628) says : " When any one of them sickens unto 
death, a spear is put in his tent and around it they wrap a black felt ; 
and thenceforth no one who is a stranger dare enter the bounds of his 
dwelling. And when he begins to agonize, nearly all leave him, for no 
one of those who have witnessed his death can enter the orda of any 
chief or of the emperor until the new moon" (conf. Rubruck, p. 344 
of text). 

^ Villa, Constantinople, 17 TroXtr, is of course meant. We usually 
derive the Turkish, name Stambul from •n)v iroKiv, but I am inclined to 
believe that Pears {Fall of Constantinople, 177) is right in thinking 
that the Turkish name is but an abbreviation of Constantmople, just 
as Skenderun is of Alexandretta, Isnik of Niceaea, etc. 

G Z 



84 JOURNEY OF 

was a Christian, and that I wanted to go to him, for I had 
your letters to deliver to him. They made most diligent 
inquiry whether I was going of my own free will, or 
whether I was sent. I answered that no one forced me 
to go, nor would I go if I did not want to, so I was going 
of my own free will (239), and also of the will of my 
superior. I was most careful never to say that I was your 
ambassador. Then they asked me what was in the carts, 
whether it was gold or silver or costly clothing that I was 
taking to Sartach. I answered that Sartach would see for 
himself what we were bringing to him when we reached 
him, but that it was none of their business to ask : they 
should have me shown to their captain, and that he, if it so 
pleased him, should have me taken to Sartach, otherwise 
I would go back. 

Now there was in that province a relative of Baatu, a 
captain by the name of Scatay,^ to whom the lord emperor 
of Constantinople was sending (by me) letters that I be 
allowed to pass. So they agreed (to do as I asked), 
supplying us with horses and oxen, and two men to guide 
us ; and those who had brought us went back. Before, 
however, giving us all this, they kept us waiting for a long 
time, begging of our bread for their little ones, admiring 
everything they saw on our servants, knives, gloves, purses 
and belts, and wanting everything. I excused myself on 
the plea that we had a long journey before us, and that we 
] could not at the start deprive ourselves of necessary things. 
Then they called me an impostor. It is true that they 
took nothing (240) by force ; but they beg in the most 
importunate and impudent way for whatever they see, and 
if a person gives to them, it is so much lost, for they are 



^ The name is variously written Scatai^ Scatay^ Scatatai^ Scatatay 
and Scatanay. It may be that the chief is the same as the Cadan, 
Cartan, or Catan, mentioned by Pian de Carpine (667)^ and supra^ 
p. 8, and whose wife, he says (745) was Batu's sister. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 8$ 

ungrateful. They consider themselves the masters of the i/ ^ 
world, and it seems to them that there is nothing that 
anyone has the right to refuse them :^ if he refuses to give, 
and after that has need of their service, they serve him 
badly. They gave us to drink of their cow's milk, from 
which the butter had been taken ; it was very sour, and is 
what they call aira? And thus we left them, and it 
seemed to me that we had escaped from the midst of 
devils. On the next day we came to their captain. 

For two months, from the time we left Soldaia to when 
we came to Sartach, we never slept in a house or tent, but 
always in the open air or under our carts ; and we never 
saw a city, but only Comans' tombs in very great numbers.* 

That evening the man who was guiding us gave us 
cosmos to drink, and at the taste of it I broke out in a 
sweat with horror and surprise, for I had never drunk of it. 
It seemed to me, however, very palatable, as it really is. 



^ Pian de Carpine (636) says : " They are haughtier than any other 
people, and despise all the rest of the world, holding them as less than 
nothing, be ihey high or low. . . . They are greater liars than other 
men, and there is hardly any truth in them. At first some of them 
are quite bland, but they bite like the scorpion. They are astucious 
and deceitful, and where they can, they get around everyone by 
trickery." 

* The ordinary drink of the Kirghiz is boiled milk mixed with water, 
and allowed to get sour. It is called airan (see Pallas, Voyages^ 
i, 618 ; Radloff, Aus Sibirien, i, 439). Atkinson, Upper and Lower 
Amoor (42), calls it hyran, 

3 Ibn Batuta (ii, 363) remarks that it is the custom of the people of 
the Kipchak to travel in the same way as the pilgrims on the Hedjaz 
road. They start after the morning prayer, camp towards nine or ten 
o'clock in the morning, start again in the afternoon, and camp again 
in the evening. Bergmann (ii, 182) says that the usual distance 
travelled daily by a Kalmuk is estimated by them at from 20 to 25 
versts, or about 13J to 16^ statute miles. In Mongolia and Central 
Asia, the length of the stage is regulated to a great extent by the supply 
of grass and water ; the average distance, however, is, I think, from 
20 to 30 miles when travelling on horseback, and 14 to 15 with camels. 
Friar William probably went at about this latter rate, or even more 
slowly, with his ox carts. 




86 JOURNEY OF 

5N the morning then we came across the carts oi 
Scatay carrying the dwellings, and it seemed 
to me that a city was coming towards me.^ 
I was also astonished at the size of the herds of oxen 
ahd horses and flocks of sheep, though I saw but few 
rhen to manage them. So I asked how many men 
(Scatay) had under him, and I was told that there 
were not (241) over five hundred, of whom we had 
passed half at another camp. Then the man who 
guided us began telling me that I must give something 
to Scatay, and he made us stop while he went ahead to 
announce our coming. It was already past the third hour, 
so they set down their dwellings near some water, and 
(Scatay's) interpreter came to us, and as soon as he learnt 
that we had never been among them before he begged of 
our provisions, and we gave him some. He wanted also a 
gown, for he was to act as translator of our words in the 
presence of his master. We excused ourselves. He asked 
what we were bringing to his master, so we got a flagon of 
wine and filled a small basket^ with biscuits and a plate 
with apples and other fruit, but he was not pleased because 
we were not taking some costly tissue. However we went 
with this in fear and trembling. (Scatay) was seated on 



^ Ibn Batuta (ii, 380) thus describes his first view of the camp of the 
Khan of Kipchak : " Then the imperial cortege, which the Turks 
call ordu^ arrived. We saw a great city moving with its inhabitants, 
containing mosques and markets, with the smoke of kitchens rising in 
the air ; for the Turks cook their food during the march. Carts drawn 
by horses transport these people, and when they have come to the 
camping place they unload the tents which are on the arbasy and put 
them up on the ground ; for they are very light. They do the same 
with the mosques and the shops." 

2 Veringal. Yule {Marco Polo, i, 371) says there is a Venetian sea- 
term, Vernegal, applied to a wooden bowl m which the food of the 
men is put. I have not found this word in any dictionary at my dis- 
posal, but as Friar William in another passage (254) uses the word 
cophinum, the old French word coffin, meaning "a small basket," 
I have no hesitation in translating it as I have done. It was probably 
a round flat basket, in shape and size like a plate. Hakluyt (p. in) 
renders it by " maund." See also Pauthier, Marco Polo, 280. 



FRIAR WILLIAM 0(F RUBRUCK. g^ 

his couch, with a Httre guitar in his hand, and his wiK was 
beside him ; and in truth it seemed to me that her whole 
nose had been cut off, for she was so snub-nosed that she 
s^eemed to have no nose at all '; and she had greased this 
part of her face with some black unguent, and also her 
^ebrows, so that she appeared most hideous to us.. Then 
I spoke to him in the terms previously used, for it was 
essential that we should everywhere say the same thing ; 
about this we had been well cautioned by those who had 
been among them, never to change what we said. Then I 
begged him to be pleased to accept these trifles of us,^,y 
excusing myself, being a monk and not allowed by my 
order to own gold or silver or costly robes (242) : so I had 
nothing of the sort to give him, only of our food to offer 
him for a blessing. Then he had the things accepted, and 
at once distributed among his men who had gathered 
there to drink. I also gave him the letters from the 
emperor of Constantinople. This was on the octave of 
the Ascension (5th June). He at once sent them to 
Soldaia, to be translated there, for they were in Greek, and 
he had no one with him who knew the Greek language. 
He asked us if we would drink cosmos^ or mare's milk ; for 
the Christians, Ruthenians, Greeks and Alans who live 
among them, and who wish to follow strictly their religion, 
drink it not ; for of a truth they consider themselves to be 
no longer Christians if they drink it, and the priests have 
to bring them back into the fold as if they had denied the 
faith of Christ.^ Then I made answer that we had had 
enough of our own to drink so far, but that if that liquor 



^ Greek priests whom I have consulted on this point have assured 
me that such used to be in the twelfth century the general belief of the 
Christians inhabiting among the Tartars. They have, however, been 
unable to produce any documentary evidence. The Armenian 
chronicles say that the Georgians would not partake of the Mongol 
feasts nor drink their kumiss, "because they were Christians" 
(Dulaurier, 236, 238). 



88 JOURNEY OF 

should give out, we should have to drink what he gave us. 
He asked about the contents of the letters we were sending 
to Sartach. I told him that the sealed ones were our bulls 
but that there was naught in them but good and friendly 
words. He then asked what we would say to Sartach. 
I answered : " Words of the Christian faith." He asked 
which, for he would be pleased to hear them. Then I 
expounded to him as well as I could through my inter- 
preter, who was neither over intelligent nor fluent, the 
symbol of the faith. When he had heard it, he remained 
silent, but wagged his head. Then, having made choice of 
two men to watch over us, and over the horses and oxen, 
he made us drive about^ with him until the return of the 
messenger whom he (243) had sent to have the letters of 
the emperor translated, and we went about with him until 
the day after Pentecost (8th June). 




JN Pentecost eve (6th June) there came to us 
certain Alans, who are there called Aas, and 
they are Christians according to the Greek 
rite, and use the Greek writing and have Greek priests.^ 



1 Bi^are. Friar William seems to use this word to designate the 
moving about of the camp with the big tents on carts. 

2 The Alans or Aas appear to be identical with the An-ts'ai or 
A-lan-na of the Hou Han shu (bk. 88, 9), of whom we read that 
"they led a -pastoral life N.W. of Sogdiana (K'ang-chii) in a plain 
bounded by great lakes (or swamps), and in their wanderings went as 
far as the shores of the Northern Ocean" (Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 338), 
Pei shih (bk. 97, 12) refers to them under the name of Su-te and 
Wen-na-sha (see also Bretschneider, Med. Geog.y 258, et seg). 
Strabo (xi, 2, 422, and 5, 434), refers to them under the name of Aorsi 
living to the north but contiguous to the Albani, whom some authors 
confound with them, but whom later Armenian historians carefully 
distinguish from them (De Morga.n, Mission, i, 232). Ptolemy (vi, 14) 
speaks of this people as the " Scythian Alans" CAXavoi ^kvOcu) ; but the 
first definite mention of them in classical authors is, according to 
Bunbury (ii, 486), found in Dionysius Periergetes (305), who speaks of 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 89 

They are not however scismatics h'ke the Greeks,^ for 
without any respect to persons they honour all Christians. 
And they brought us cooked meats, begging us to 
eat of their food, and to pray for one of theirs who 
had died. Then I told them that it was the eve of a 
great festival, and that on that day we did not eat meat, 
and I told them of the festival, at which they were 
much pleased, for they were in ignorance of what con- 
cerned the Christian rite, the name of Christ alone 
excepted. And they and many other Christians, 
Ruthenians and Hungarians asked whether they could 
be saved, for they had to drink cosmos and eat carrion and 
beasts slaughtered by Saracens and infidels, which those 
Greek and Ruthenian priests consider about the same as 



the aKKr)fVTfs *AXavoi (see also De Morgan, i, 202, and Deguignes, ii, 
279, e^ seq,\ 

Ammianus Marcellinus (xxxi, 348) says the Alans were a congeries 
of tribes living E. of the Tanais (Don), and stretching far into Asia. 
"Distributed over two continents, all these nations, whose various 
names I refrain from mentioning, though separated by immense 
tracts of country in which they pass their vagabond existence, have 
with time been confounded under the generic appellation of Alans." 
Ibn Alathir, at a later date, also refers to the Alans as "formed of 
numerous nations" (Dulaurier, xiv, 455). 

Conquered by the Huns in the latter part of the fourth century, 
some of the Alans moved westward, others settled on the northern 
slopes of the Caucasus; though long prior to that, in a.d. 51, they had, 
as allies of the Georgians, ravaged Armenia (see Yule, Cathay ^ 316; 
Deguignes, i, pt. ii, 277, et seq, ; and De Morgan, i, 217, et seq,). 

Mirkhond, in the Tarikhi IVassaf, and other Mohammedan writers 
speak of the Alans anti As. However this may be, it is thought that 
the Oss or Ossetes of the Caucasus are their modern representatives 
(Klaproth, Tad/, histy 180; De Morgan, i, 202, 231). See also on the 
subject of the Alans, Yule, Cathay y 373, and Marco Polo, ii, 164, 
492 ; Vivien de St. Martin, Nouv. Ann, des Voyages^ Aug.-Sept., 1848, 
164 ; Deveria, yi^wr^. Asiat,y ixe s^rie, viii, 431 ; and Haxthausen, op, 
cit,y p. 385, ei seq, 

^ In the tenth century, we find the Emperor of Constantinople 
addressing the Alan chiefs as his ** spiritual sons " (Const. Porphyro- 
genitus, De adminis.y i, 688}. Bar Hebraeus also states that the Alans 
admitted the unity of persons in the Trinity, but not the unity of 
nature ; in other words, that they belonged to the church of Rome 
(Quatrem^re, 80 ; see also Mosheim, Hist, Tart, Eccles.y Appendix, 
167, et seq,). 



gp .1 fJOURNEVOF . 

carri6n, or sacrifices to idols; and because they did not' 
know the facts, neither could they keep them if they did 
know. Then I explained to them as well as I could, 
teaching them and comforting them in the faith. The 
meat which they had brought (244) we kept for .the feast 
day, for we could find nothing to buy with gold and silver, 
but only with linen or other tissues, and of those we had 
none. When our servants showed the yperpera, they 
rubbed them with their fingers, and put them to their 
noses to smell if they were copper.^ Neither did they 
(/>., the Mongols) give us food, but only cow?s milk, very 
sour and bad-smelling. Our wine was about exhausted, 
and the water was so muddy from the horses that it was 
not drinkable ; had it not been fof the biscuits we had, 
and God's mercy, we should probably have perished. 




jN the day of Pentecost (7th June) a certain 
Saracen came to us, and while in conversation 
with us, we began expounding the faith, and 
when he heard of the blessings of God to man in the 
incarnation, the resurrection of the dead and the last 
judgment, the washing away of sins in baptism, he 



^ This proves that the Mongols had a pretty good idea of Byzan- 
tine coins of the period. Pachymeres (Andron. Paleol,^ vi, 343) 
says that in the reign of John Ducas Vataces (Friar William's 
Vatacius) the goldcoins {aurea or hyperpera) contained one-third alloy. 
Even at a later date, Ibn Batuta^ii, 444) says that one of the wives of 
the Khan of Kipchak ** gave me three hundred dinars in gold of the 
country, which is called alberberah (iperpera) ; but this gold is not 
good." 

Pian de Carpine (707) speaks of "yperpera orbesants." Gibbon 
{History^ vii, 341) " guesses" from a corrupt passage of Guntherus that 
"the Perpera was ^^ nummus aureus^ the fourth part of a mark of 
silver, or about ten shillings sterling in value." Friar John uses the 
word yperpera as synonymous with bezant, as did Joinville, Marco 
Polo, and others (Yule, Marco Poh^'n^ 535). It cannot be estimated 
at less than los. 6d, ox lis. 



FRIAR WILLIAM: Of RUBRUCK. 9I 

said he wished to be baptised ; but while we were 
making ready to baptise him he suddenly jumped 
on his horse saying he had to go home to consult with 
his wife. And the next day talking with us he said he 
could not possibly venture to receive baptism, for then 
he could not drink cosmos. For the Christians of these 
parts say that no true Christian should drink, but that 
(245) without this drink it were impossible to live in these 
deserts. From this opinion I could not possibly turn him. 
So you will see how far they are astray from the true faith 
through this opinion, which has been implanted among 
them by the Ruthenians, of whom there are great numbers 
there. 

On this same day (7th June) this captain (Scatay) gave 
us a man to guide us to Sartach, and two to take us to 
a camp which was five days off, as oxen travel. And 
they gave us also a goat for food, and several skins of 
cow's milk, but only a little cosmos^ for it is held very 
precious among them. And so we set out due north,^ and 
it seemed to me that we had passed through one of the 
gates of hell. The men who conducted us began robbing 
us in the most audacious manner, for they saw that we 
took but little care. Finally, after losing a number of 
things, vexation made us wise. 

We came finally to the end of this province (of Gazaria), 
which is closed by a ditch (running) from one sea to the ^Z 
other,2 and outside of it was the camp of these (Mongols) ; 



^ Recta in aquilonem. Friar William's bearings are always off a 
great many points. In the present case, travelling from Sudak to 
Perekop,' he was going in a general N.W. by N. direction. 

2 There is to my mind little doubt that the ditch, which Herodotus 
(iii, 2, 15) states was built by the blind slaves of the Scythians to close 
the Chersonesus, was at the isthmus of Perekop ; though some writers 
think that it, like the wall mentioned by Strabo (vii, 4, 258), ran across 
the Kertch peninsula from the bay of Kaffa to that of Arabat. That 
there was a ditch at Perekop in ancient times is demonstrated by the 
fact that Strabo (vii, 3, 255) places a tribe of Taphrioi (from Td<t>pos^' 



92 JOURNEY OF 

and when we came among them they were such horrible- 
looking creatures that they seemed like lepers. They were 
stationed there to collect the tax from those who get salt 
from the salt lakes of which I have already spoken. From 
this point we should have to travel xv days, they said 
without seeing anyone. We drank cosmos with them, and 
gave them a basket full of biscuits ; and they gave the 
eight of us (246) a goat for the whole long journey, and 
I know not how many skins of cow's milk. So having 
changed horses and oxen we set out, and in ten days we 
covered the distance to the next camp ; and along the 
whole route we only found water in holes made in hollows, 
with the exception of two small streams. And we were 
travelling due east from the time we left this province of 
Gazaria,^ having the sea to the south and a vast wilderness 
to the north, which extends in places over xxx days in 
breadth ; and in it is neither forest, nor hill, nor stone, but 
only the finest pasturage. Here the Comans, who are 
called Capchat,2 ^ged to pasture their flocks ; the Teutons, 



" ditch") immediately north of the isthmus. The word Perekop, I may 
also remark, means " a cutting," " a ditch." The old ditch of our 
traveller's time was repaired somewhere about 1470 by the Khan of 
the Crimea, Mengli Girai. Traces of it still remain, but the forts and 
redoubts erected by the Russians at the time of the Crimean War 
have taken the place of the old ramparts (Rdclus, Gdographie^ v, 835). 
The word Krim^ the same author (v, 826) says, has the meaning of 
" fortress," a most appropriate namie for the Crimea, which by the 
cutting and fortifying of the isthmus of Perekop could be turned into 
an impregnable stronghold. 

1 Recte in orientent. Again the bearing given by our traveller must 
be wrong ; he travelled in all probability during the first ten days after 
leaving the isthmus of Perekop, E.N.E. After reaching the first camp 
beyond Perekop, his route lay probably nearly due N.E. till he 
came to the Volga. 

* The Comans, or Kipchak Comans, as our author also calls them, 
are identical with the Polovtses, or "dwellers of the Plain," of the early 
Russian annalists (Nestor, Chronique, 12, 19, et pas.\ the Turks of the 
Desht (or " Plain") Kipchak of Mohammedan contemporary writers. 
Under the name of Kumam or Comans, they are frequently mentioned 
by Byzantine writers. The origin of this name is not known. Some 
writers, as Adelung {Mithridatesy i, 479), think they may have taken 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 93 

however, call them Valans, and the province Valania. It 
is stated however by Isidorus that Alania extends from 
the river Tanais to the Palus Maeotis and the Danube; and 
this country which extends from the Danube to the 
Tanais (which is the boundary between Asia and Europe), 
and which it takes two months hard riding, as ride the 
Tartars, to cross, was all inhabited by the Capchat Comans, 
as was also that beyond the Tanais to the Etilia, between 
which two rivers are x (247) good days. To the north of 
this province lies Ruscia, which is everywhere covered with 



it from the river Kuma, which discharges in the Caspian ; but as 
d Avezac(487) remarks, the name already occurs in Xenophon {A nadastSj 
vii, 8, 15), under the form Comania (Ko/iavta). Assyrian inscriptions 
of the eighth century, B.C., speak of an expedition of Tiglath Pileser 
(b.C. 747-727) against the Comam\ who hved at that time in the 
present Kurdistan. The king is there said to have defeated their army 
of 20,000 men, captured and destroyed their castles and towns, and 
laid waste " the far spreading country of the Comani " (Rawlinson, 
Five Ancient Monarchies^ ii, 67). I ti would, therefore, seem more likely 
that the river Kuma took its name from the Comani. Pomponius 
Mela (i, 603) mentions the Comani among the nations of the interior 
of Western Asia. Rashideddin gives the following legend concerning 
the origin of the Kipchak : " Oghuz Khan having been defeated by 
the tribe of the Itbarak, was forced to retire to an island between two 
rivers. At that time it happened that a woman, whose husband had 
been killed in the battle, was delivered of a child in the hollow of a 
large tree. When Oghuz heard of this he said : * As this woman has 
no husband, I will adopt her son.' The child received the name of 
Kipchak^ a word derived from the Turkish kubuk^ meaning *a 
decayed tree.' All the people of Kipchak are descended from this 
adopted son of Oghuz. After seventeen years, Oghuz succeeded in 
gaining the superiority over the Itbarak. He conquered Iran, and 
returned to his original home. Afterwards, when the Itbarak revolted, 
Oghuz settled the Kipchak between their country and the river Jaik 
(Ural). Since that time the Kipchak have remained, both in summer 
and winter, in the same country." The country is frequently called 
"the Desht" by Mohammedan writers, but the name is usually 
written Deshti-Kapchak (Quatrem^re, 67 ; Mesalek al-absar^ 281, 
284 ; Burnes, Travels in Bokhara^ i, 322, ii, 267). Ibn Alathir (xiv, 
456) says the Mongols claimed the Kipchak as of their race. Ibn 
Batuta(ii, 356) describes the country in about the same terms as Friar 
William : ** This plain is covered with grass and flowers, but one sees 
in it neither mountain, tree, hill nor slope." See also d'Ohsson, i, 338 ; 
Yule, Marco Polo^ i, 52, ii, 491 ; Bretschneider, Med, Geog.^ 162 ; 
Mesalek al-absar, 268. Rubruck (274) says the Cangle were a branch 
of the Comans. K?id\o^ {A us Sibirien, ii, 10) and Sven Hedin {op. cit^ 
i, 259) mention a tribe of Kirghiz called Kipchak still living m the 
eastern Pamirs, 



J 



94 JOURNEY OF 

forests, and extends from Poland and Hungary to the 
Tanais, and it was all ravaged by the Tartars, and is still 
being ravaged every day. For the Tartars f)refer the 
Saracens to the Ruthenians, who are Christians, and when 
the latter can give no more gold or silver they driv6 them 
off to the wilds, them and their little ones, like flocks 
of sheep, there to herd their cattle.^ Beyond Ruscia tp the 
north is Pruscia, which has all been recently conquered by 
the Teutonic knights \^ and of a truth they might rea;dily 
acquire Ruscia, if they would put their hand to it, for 
should the Tartars hear that the great priest, that is the 
Pope, was about to make a crusade against them, they 
would all flee to their deserts. 




[E travelled eastward, seeing nothing but the sky 
and the earth, only now and then to our right 
the sea which is called Sea of Tanais,^ and 
tombs of Comans visible two leagues off*, on account of 



1 Plan de Carpine (700) says that when he was in Russia " there was 
a certain tax-gatherer sent there by Kuyuk Khan and Batu who took 
from each man one child out of every three, and all the men who had 
no wives. And as to the women he took all those who had no 
husbands, and in like manner all paupers. Those left were counted, 
and of each, down to the new-born babe, whether rich or poor, was 
exacted the following tribute : a skin of a white bear (or) one black 
beaver (or) one black sable {zabulus or sabulus\ one skin of a black 
animal they have in the north, the name of which I know not in Latin, 
but which in German is called iltis (pole-cat), and which the Poles 
and Ruthenians call dochori {choreke in Russian), (or) one black fox 
skin. And whoever paid not this was led off to the Tartars and made 
a slave." 

^ The Teutonic order began the conquest of Prussia and Livonia in 
1230, but it was not until about 1310 that the whole country was 
subdued (Karamsin, iii, 167-172). 

3 Friar \yilliam more frequently gives the sea of Azov its classical 
name of Palus Mceotis^ by which it was also known to many of the 
Mohammedan writers : Masudi calls it Maitus^ and Abulfeda Matych. 
Abulmahasen, Quatrem^re says {^Not, et Extr., xiii, 272), gives it the 
name of Sea of Sudak, and Ibn Alathir (xiv, 457) calls it Sea of the 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 95 

the custom of burying the whole of a family in one . 
: spot/ As long as we wefe in the desert it fared well 
with us, but such misery as I had to suffer when we 
Came to inhabited places, words fail me to express. For 
our guide wanted (248) me to meet every captain with a 
present, but our supplies sufficed not for that, for daily we 
were eight persons eating our bread, without counting those 
who came by hazard, who all wanted to eat with us. There 
were five of us, and the three who were conducting us, two 
driving the carts and one going with us to Sartach. The 
meat they had given us was insufficient, and we could 
find nothing to buy with money.^ To add to this, when we 
were seated in the shade under our carts, for the heat was 
intense at that season, they pushed in most importunately 
among us, to the point of crushing lis, in their eagerness to 
see all our things. If they were seized with a desire to void 
their stomachs, they did not go away from us farther than 
one can throw a bean : they did their filthiness right beside 
us while talking together, and much more they did which 



Khazars, a name applied to the Caspian by Mohammedan writers, 
but intelligible here, as some Mohammedan geographers of his time 
believed that the Caspian communicated by the Sea of Azov with the 
Black Sea. Barbaro (4, et passim) calls it ** Sea of Tabacche," which 
may be for " Sea of Tanais." 

^ Friar Ascelin and Simon of St. Quentin had similar experiences 
(see Vincent of Beauvais bk. xxxi, ch. xl-lii, 453^-454^). Pian de 
Carpine (670) remarks : " No matter whence the ambassadors come, 
they are (on arriving among the Mongols) in dire distress as to 
victuals and clothing ; for their allowances are poor and small, 
especially when they reach (the camp) of any of the princes and are 
forced to wait there ; for then they give so little to ten men that two 
could barely live on it. Nor while at the courts of the princes nor on 
the road do they give to eat but once a day, and little enough then ; 
and if they insult one, it cannot be resented, but must be borne in 
patience. Great numbers of presents are asked for among them, 
as well by the princes as the great and the small, and if they are not 
given, they abuse one and hold him as nothing ; and if (the envoys) 
are sent by a great personage, they will not receive a moderate present, 
but s^y : * You come from a great personage, and you give so little ?' 
So they scorn to receive it, and if the ambassadors want to do thpir 
work satisfactorily, they must give larger onje;s." 



96 JOURNEY OF 

was vexatious beyond measure.^ Above all this, however, I 
was distressed because I could do no preaching to them ; 
the interpreter would say to me : " You cannot make me 
preach, I do not know the proper words to use." And he 
spoke the truth ; for after awhile, when I had learned 
something of the language, I saw that when I said one 
thing, (249) he said a totally different one, according to 
what came uppermost in his mind. So, seeing the danger 
of speaking through him, I made up my mind to keep 
silence. 

We travelled along then in great distress from stage to 
stage till a few days before the feast of blessed Mary 
Magdalen (22nd June) we came to the great river Tanais, 
which separates Asia from Europe,^ just as the river of 
Egypt divides Asia from Affrica. At the place where we 
came to it Baatu and Sartach had established a village of 
Ruthenians on the east bank, who ferried envoys and 
merchants across on small boats. They first passed us 
across, then the carts ; putting one wheel in one boat and 
the other in another and tying the boats together they 
rowed them across.^ At this place our guide did a most 



1 Plan de Carpine (637) remarks : " they are a filthy people in eating 
and in drinking, and in all their other doings." 

^ The south-eastern boundary of Europe appears to have been 
fixed at the Tanais or Don from very ancient times. Herodotus (iii, 
32) refers to it, but says he cannot conceive why it should have been 
adopted as the boundary (see Rawlinson's note on the subject). The 
opinion that the Nile separated Africa from Asia was also adopted 
by classical geographers (Pomponius Mela, i, 603). On the 
sources of the Tanais, see infra, Rubruck tells us that after leaving 
Perekop he travelled in an easterly direction till he came to the 
Don, and that when he left that river it took him nine days to 
reach Sartach's camp, which was three days W. of the Volga. The 
first three or four days he had to travel on foot, and so did not 
probably cover more than thirty to forty miles. The point where he 
came on the Don was therefore in all likelihood not over 200 miles 
from the Volga by the route he followed, which was N.E. (see also 
F. M. Schmidt, 178-179). 

3 These boats were probably canoes. Barbaro (31) speaks of the 
boats dug out of great trees growing along the Volga, and used by 
the Russians on that river. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 97 

foolish thing ; thinking that the people had to supply us 
with horses, he sent back to their owners from the near 
bank the animals which had brought us ; but when 
we asked for animals they replied that they were ex- 
empted by Baatu from any other service than ferrying 
across those who came and went. From merchants even 
they collect much money. So we remained there on the 
river bank for three days. The first day they gave us a 
big barbel^ just out of the water, the second day some 
rye bread and a little meat which the headman of the 
village (250) collected from the different houses ; the third 
day we got dried fish, of which they have great quantities 
here. That river at this point was as broad as the Seine 
at Paris. And before we came there, we passed many fine 
sheets of water full of fish, but the Tartars do not know 
how to catch them, nor do they care for fish unless they 
can eat it as they would mutton. This river is the eastern 
boundary of Ruscia, and takes its rise in the Moeotide 
fens, which extend to the ocean in the north.^ The 
river, however, flows southward, forming a big sea of 



^ Borbata. Pallas ( Voyages^ i, 202), enumerating the various kinds 
offish found in the Volga, speaks of the **barbue" or rhombus piscis. 
This may be our traveller's borbota, or barbata as some of the MSS. 
write it (see supra^ p. 45). 

* Oritur de pal udibus Meotidis. Hakluyt's MS. wrongly reads ;//^r- 
f^tur on p. 120, where this statement is repeated ; all the other MSS., 
however, have oritur. In the present phrase Hakluyt's text omits the 
word Meotidis, The copyist was evidently disinclmed to accept as 
correct Friar William's statement, which was at variance with the 
notion concerning the sources of the Don then universally held. Even 
Roger Bacon {op. cit.y i, 357), who has incorporated in his review of the 
geography of eastern Europe and Asia all Rubruck's remarks, adheres 
to the classical views on the sources of the Don, and places them in 
the Rhipiean mountains. Our traveller was the first, since Herodotus, 
to locate correctly the sources of the Don, which flows out of Ivan 
Lake in Tula. Herodotus (iii, 42) had said that the Tanais "is a 
stream which has its source far up the country, in a lake of vast size, 
and which empties itself into another still larger lake, the Palus 
Maiotis." The name Don was already used by the Slavs in Rubruck's 
time ; both Pian dc Carpine {supra., p. 8) and Friar Benedict {supra^ 
p. 34) call it by that name (sec also F. M. Schmidt, 184). 



98 JOURNEY OF 

seven hundred miles before it reaches the Sea of Pontus, 
and all the streams we passed flow also in that direction. 
This same river has a forest on its west bank. Beyond 
this point the Tartars go no farther north, for at that 
season, about the beginning of August, they commence 
going back southward ; so there is another village lower 
down (the river), where envoys pass over in winter. We 
found ourselves here in great straits, for we could procure 
neither horses nor oxen for money. Finally, when I had 
proved to them that we were working for the common 
good of all Christendom, they obliged us with oxen and 
horses ; but we ourselves had to go on foot. 

It was the season (251) when they were cutting the rye. 
Wheat thrives not there ; but they have great abundance 
of millet. The Ruthenian women arrange their heads as 
among us, but their outside gowns they trim from the feet 
to the knee with vaire or minever. The men wear capes 
like the Germans ; on their heads they wear felt caps, 
pointed and very high. 

We trudged along for three days without seeing anyone, 
and just as we and the oxen were well worn out, and 
unable to find any Tartars, two horses came running 
towards us ; we took them with great delight, and our 
guide and the interpreter got on them, in the hope of being 
able to find some people. Finally on the fourth day^ we 
found some people, and we were as happy as shipwrecked 
mariners on reaching port. Then we got horses and oxen 
and went along from stage to stage till we reached the 
camp of Sartach on the second day of the Calends of 
August (July 31st). 

^ Since leaving the ferry across the Don. 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 99 

^HE country beyond the Tanais is most beautiful, 
with rivers and forests. To the north are great 
forests, inhabited by two races of men : to wit, the 
Moxel,^ who are without any reh'gion, a race of pure pagans. 
They have no towns, but only little hamlets in the forest. 
Their chief and the greater part of them were killed in 
Germany; for the Tartars (252) took them with them to 
the borders of Germany, and so they have formed a high 
opinion of the Gerrrians,^ and they hope that through them 
they may finally be freed of the Tartar yoke. If a trader 
comes among this people, he with whom he first puts up 
must provide for him as long as he sees fit to stay among 
them. If one sleeps with another's wife the husband cares 
not, unless he sees it with his own eyes ; so they are not 
jealous.^ They have swine, honey and wax, precious furs 
and hawks. 



^ The Moxel and Merdas form the two branches of the Finnish 
Mordwin people. These names, according to FaWas {Voyages, i, 104), 
correctly transcribed are Mokshad and Ersad^ the first name being 
applied by them to their race in general. The earliest mention I 
have found of this people is in Jornandes (444), where he speaks of 
the Mordensimnis among the peoples of Hermanaric's empire. 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus {De Admims.^ 166) refers also to the 
Mordia country. Nestor {Chronique^ 2) calls them Mordwa. Pian 
de Carpine (676) speaks of them as Morduani^ and in another 
passage (709) as Mordui. Barbaro (33) calls this people the Moxii^ 
and adds that they were mostly pagans. Some of their customs, as 
described by him, are purely Tartar, especially that of sacrificing 
horses at burials and setting up the stuffed skin over the grave (see 
also Castren, Ethnolog. Vorlesungen^ 134, and especially Smirnow, 
Populations Finnoises, i, 260, et seq.). This latter author (264, et seq.) 
shows that the identification of the Merdas with the Burtasox Bartas 
of the early Mohammedan geographers cannot be accepted. 

^ Refening to the conquests being made at the time by the Teutonic 
Order, and to the possibility of their extending them to the Volga. 

' Smirnow {pp. cit.^ i, 337) says : " In the beginning the Mordwin 
family was only the association of several persons living together. . . . 
There is no question of marriage in the proper sense of the word." 
The same author, speaking of the Mordvvins of the present day, says 
{loc. sup. cit.) '- "The girls do not generally marry before twenty or 
twenty-five ; but when barely at the age of puberty, that is to say at 
the age of fourteen, they have relations with the boys of their village. 
«... Liaisons between cousins are frequent ; they are not unknown 
between brothers and sisters." 

H 2 



lOO JOURNEY OF 

After them are the others called Merdas, whom the 
Latins call Merdinis,and they are Saracens. Beyond them 
is the Etilia, the largest river I have ever seen, and it 
comes from the north, from Greater Bulgaria and flows 
south, and it falls into a certain lake which has a circum- 
ference of iiii months journey, and of it I shall tell you 
later.^ So these two rivers, the Tanais and the Etilia, in the 
north where we crossed them, are only distant the one from 
the other x days ; but to the south they are far remote 
from one another. For the Tanais flows down into the 
Sea of Pontus, while the Etilia forms with many other 
rivers which flow into it from Persia, this sea or lake. To 
the south we had very high mountains, inhabited, on the 
side facing this desert, by the Kerkis^ and the Alans or 
Aas, who are Christians and still fight the Tartars. Beyond 
them, along the sea or lake of Etilia, live certain Saracens 
called Lesgi,^ who likewise owe them no allegiance. 
Beyond them are the Iron Gates, which Alexander made 
to keep the barbarous nations out of Persia ; of these I 



^ On Friar William's views concerning the Caspian, see infra^ p. 1 18. 

2 The Cherkesses or Circassians are of course meant. Here, as on 
p. 70, our traveller writes the name Kerkis, In the present passage, 
however, MSS. D and E give the correct reading, Cherkis. Plan de 
Carpi ne (659) also writes Kergis for Cherkis. The only detail he gives 
concerning them (679) is their habit of taking a strip of skin off their 
faces from ear to ear as a sign of mourning for their deceased 
fathers. The Cherkesses, who descend from the ancient Sarmatian 
tribes of classical authors, have occupied for the last two thousand 
years the Caucasian slope of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, the 
Kuban steppes (De Morgan, Mission^ ii, 277). 

3 Strabo (xi, 5, 432) speaks of the Legal (A^yai) and Gelai (rijXat) 
two Scythic nations living between Albania (/>., E. Caucasus) and 
the Aorsi (the Alans). Latin authors called this people Legcc. In 
the seventh century, Jornandes (432) refers to them as occupying the 
same country, and calls themZrt:^/. Ibn Alathir (455) speaks of them 
as the Lckz^ and says that in his time (tenth century) they were partly 
Mohammedan, partly Christian. The country occupied at the present 
time by the Lesgians is called Daghestan. De Morgan (ii, 278) does 
not think this people can be classed, on the vague statement of Strabo, 
in the Turanian race, but sees in it an inextricable mixture of all the 
races and tribes which have successively overrun this country (see. 
also infra^ 380, 381}. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. lOI 

shall tell you later, for I passed through this place on my 
way back, and between these two (253) rivers in this 
country through which we were travelling used to live 
Comans Capchac before the Tartars occupied it. 




fO we found Sartach three days from the Etilia, and 
his ordu seemed to us very big, for he has six wives, 
and his eldest son who was beside him had two or 
three, and every one of them had a big dwelling and perhaps 
two hundred carts. Our guide went to a certain Nestorian, 
Coiac^ by name, who is one of the most important men of his 
ordu. This latter made us go a long way to an officer who 
is called th^ Jamiam, for thus they call him whose duty it 
IS to receive envoys.^ In the evening this Coiac had us told 
to come to him. Then our guide asked us what we were 
going to take to him, and he was greatly scandalized when 
he saw that we were getting nothing ready to take to him. 
We stood in front of him seated in all his glory, striking a 
guitar and making people dance before him. Then I 
repeated what I had previously said elsewhere as to the 
reason for which we had come to his master, begging him 
to assist us that his lord might see our letters. I also 
excused myself, being a monk, for neither having, receiving 
nor carrying with me gold or silver or any precious thing, 



1 The name is variously written in the MSS. Caiaq Coiat and 
Coiac, 

2 In another passage (298) the name is correctly written lam, 
Marco Polo (i, 420) says : " And the messengers of the Emperor in 
traveUing from Cambaluc, be the road whichsoever they will, find 
at every 25 miles of the journey a station which they call Yamb^ or, 
as we should say, the * Horse Post-House.'" Pallas {Voyages^ i, 698) 
speaks of the Jami^ or " relais de poste," of Asiatic Russia when he 
visited it in 1769 (see also Yule, Cathay^ 131 ; Cordier, Odoric^ 
27 4i 416 ; d'Ohsson, i, 406 ; and Yule, Marco Polo, i, 423). These post- 
stations were established by Ogodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol 
empire (d'Ohsson, ii, 63). 



I02 JOURNEY OF 

but only books and the chapel,^ with which we served God, 
so we were not offering presents to either him or his 
lord, for having put away all worldly goods I could not 
be the bearer of those of others. Then he replied 
right pleasantly that (254) I did well, being a monk, to 
keep my vows ; that he did not want of our things, but 
would rather give us of his own if we were in want ; and he 
caused us to sit down and drink of his milk, and after 
awhile he bespught us to say a blessing for him, which we 
did. He also- asked us who was the greatest lord among 
the Franks. 1 said : " The Emperor, if his land were in 
peace." " No," he said, " it is the King of France." For 
he had heard of you from Messire Baldwin of Hainaut.*^ 
I also found there one of the companions of David,^ who 
had been in Cyprus (with him), and who had told him of 
all he had seen. Then we went back to our lodgings. 

The next day (ist August) I sent him (Coiac) a flagon 
of muscadel wine, which had kept perfectly good during the 



. ^ Capella in qua serviebamus Deo. The word capella in mediaeval 
Latin, and also in modern French, is used to designate both the place 
in which mass is celebrated, and by extension the chalice, jcandle- 
sticks, censors, and other objects used in church worship. Friar 
William uses it in the latter sense. See Ducange, Glossarium^ ii, 221, 
and Littr^, Dictionnaire^ s. v. chapelle. 

2 Baldwin of Hainaut, a knight in the service of the Emperor 
Baldwin of Constantinople, had married, in 1240, a Coman princess, 
daughter of Soronius, on the conclusion of a treaty of peace between 
that Prince's horde and Baldwin II (Lebeau, Histoire^ xvii, 392). 
We learn from our traveller (326) that Baldwin had travelled 
through northern Asia, going as far, it would seem, as Karakorum. 
I know no other mention in any contemporary record of this 
journey. 

' Unum de sociis David. The David referred to is he who in 1248 
came to St. Louis, when at Nicosia in Cyprus, on a mission from the 
Mongol general Ilchikadai. For some inexplicable reason all 
translators have misunderstood the reference, and have translated 
these four words by " a Knight of the Temple," supposing, I take it, 
that it that socius David was for sociiis or miles Salomonis (Hakluyt, 
116, 117 ; Purchas, 13 ; Bergeron, 32 ; Karamsin, iv, 73 ; da Civezza, 
Storia Universalle, i, 433 ; Deveria, Notes d' epigraphies 45). William 
of Nangis (360) says David's companion when at St. Louis' camp 
was called Marchus. This may be the person here referred to. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IO3 

whole long journey, and a hamper^ of biscuits which 
pleased him very much ; and that evening he kept our 
servants with him. The next day he sent me word to 
come to the court, bringing with me the king's letters, the 
vestments and the church ornaments and the books, fo 
his master wished to see them. We did accordingly, 
putting in one cart the books and the chapel, and in 
another bread, wine and fruit. Then he caused us to 
explain all about the books and vestments, and many 
Tartars and Christians and Saracens looked on seated on 
their horses. When he had finished examining them, he 
asked if I would give all these things to his master. When 
I heard this I was shocked, and his words displeased me. 
Dissimulating, however, I replied : " My lord, we beg that 
your lord will deign receive this bread, wine and fruit, not 
as a present, for it is too trifling, but for a blessing, and so 
that we appear not before him with empty hands. He 
shall see the letters of the lord King, (255) and by them 
he shall know why we come to him, and then we will await 
his pleasure, we and all our belongings. As to these vest- 
ments they are holy, and may not be touched except by 
priests." Then he told us to put them on to go in unto 
his lord, and this we did. I put on the most costly of the 
vestments, with a most beautiful cushion {pulvinar) against 
my breast, and took the Bible which you had given me, 
and the beautiful Psalter which my lady the Queen had 
presented me with, and in which were right beautiful 
pictures. My companion took the missal and the cross, 
while the clerk (Gosset) put on a surplice and took the 
censer. And so we came before his {i.e., Sartach's) dwell- 
ing, and they raised the felt which hung before the entry. 



^ Cophinus^ which I take to be the same as the veringal used on 
p. 86. . Isidorus (xx, 720) says cophinus is " vas ex virgulis aptum 
mundare stercora, et terra7n portare.^^ The French word coffin is 
still sometimes heard. 



I04 JOURNEY OF 

SO that he could see us. Then they made the clerk and 
the interpreter to bow the knee (three times) :^ of us 
they did not demand it. Then they enjoined us earnestly 
to be most careful in going in and coming out not to 
touch the threshold of the dwell ing,^ and also to chant 
some blessing for him. So we went in chanting, *' Salve^ 
reginar In the entry of the dwelling there was a bench 
with cosmos and cups, and all Sartach's wives had come 
thither and the Moal came crowding in around us. 

Then this Coiac handed him the censer with the incense, 
and he examined it, holding it in his hand most carefully. 
After that he handed him the Psalter, at which he took 
a good look, as did the wife who was seated beside him. 
Then he handed him the Bible (256), and he asked if the 
Gospels were in it. I said that it contained all the Sacred 
writings. He also took in his hand the cross, and asked if 
the image on it were that of Christ. I replied that it was. 
Those Nestorians and Hermenians never make the figure 
of Christ on their crosses ; they would thus appear to 
entertain some doubt of the Passion,^ or to be ashamed of 



^ This additional detail is only found in MS. A. The cushion 
c^W^d pulvinariwji is used to carry the Gospels on, but in this case the 
Bible was probably placed on it. 

2 Pian de Carpine, Marco Polo, Friar Odoric, all mention this point 
of Mongol etiquette. At a later date, when the Mongol emperors 
occupied palaces, it was extended to the threshold of the audience 
hall (Yule, Cathay^ 132 ; and Marco Polo^ i, 370, 372). The pro- 
hibition extended to the tent ropes. The same custom existed among 
the Fijians, I believe. I may note that it also prevailed in ancient 
China. It is said of Confucius "when he was standing he did not 
occupy the middle of the gate-way ; when he passed in or out, he did 
not tread on the threshold" {Lun-yii^ bk. x, ch. iv, 2). 

3 Male sentire de passione. " The Nestorians have no images or 
pictures in their churches, and are very much opposed to the use of 
them, even as ornaments, or as barely representing historical facts 
illustrative of sacred scriptures. They will not even allow of a crucifix, 
and regard the mere exhibition of such an- emblem, to say nothing of 
adoration, as a monstrous iniquity. . . . The only symbol in use 
among them is the plain Greek cross" (Badger, ii, 132, 414). Father 
Alishan tells me that the Armenians will not have the image of the 
Christ on their crosses, so as not to expose Him to the scoffing of 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I05 

it. Then he caused the bystanders to withdraw so that he 
could better see our ornaments. Then I presented to him 
your letter, with translations in Arabic and Syriac, for I 
had had them both translated and written in these languages 
at Acon.^ And there were there (at Sartach's camp) 
Hermenian priests who knew Turkish and Arabic, and 
that companion of David who knew Syriac, Turkish, and 
Arabic. Then we went out and took off our vestments, 
and some scribes and this Coiac came, and they translated 
the letters (into Mongol). When he (Sartach) had heard 
them, he caused our bread and wine and fruit to be 
accepted, and our vestments and books to be carried back 
to our lodgings. All this took place on the Feast of Saint 
Peter in chains (ist August). 




^HE next morning (2nd August) came to us a priest, 
the brother of that Coiac, who begged for a little 
vase with holy oil,^ for Sartach wanted to see it, he 
said ; and we gave it to him. Toward vespers (257) Coiac 
called us, and said to us : " The lord King hath written good 
words to my lord ; but they contain certain difficulties, 
concerning which he would not venture to do anything 
without the advice of his father : so you must go to his 
father. And the two carts which you brought here, with 
the vestments and books, leave them to me, for my lord 
wishes to examine them carefully." I at once suspected 



unbelievers. Crosses with the image of the Saviour on them are 
sometimes used by them, he adds, and some are known to have been 
in use even before our travellei-'s time. 

* Or Acre, from which port I think it probable that Friar William 
sailed to Constantinople. 

2 Crismate. The Nestorians do not use holy oil or chrism, but only 
pure olive oil. The Chaldeans, however, use chrism in baptisms 
(Badger, ii, 212, 213, 408). The Armenians make a great use of holy 
oil, which they call jnieron (Tournefort, Voyage^ ii, 163). 



I06 JOURNEY OF 

evil of his greed, and said to him : " My lord, not only 
these, but the two other carts which we have, will we leave 
under your care/'* " No," he said ; *' leave these, but do 
what you wish with the others." I told him this was quite 
impossible, but that we would give everything over to him. 
Then he asked us if we wished to remain in the country. 
I said : "If you have well understood the letters of the lord 
King, you can see that that is the case." Then he said 
that we must be very patient and humble ; and with this 
we left him that evening. 

The next morning he (Coiac) sent a Nestorian priest 
for the carts, and we brought all four of them. Then the 
brother of this Coiac came up, and separated all our 
belongings from the things which we had taken the day 
before to the court, and these, to wit the books and the 
vestments, he took for himself; notwithstanding that 
Coiac had ordered us to take with us the vestments we 
had worn before Sartach, so that, should occasion arise, we 
might put them on before Baatu ; but the priest took 
them from us by force, saying : " What, you have brought 
these to Sartach, and now you want (258) to take them 
to Baatu!" And when I sought to reason with him, he 
answered me : " Say no more, and be off with you." So 
I had to bear it in patience, for we were not allowed to 
go in unto Sartach, nor was there anyone to do us justice. 
I was afraid also of the interpreter, lest he say something 
differently from what I should speak, for he used to be 
eager for us to make presents to everyone. I had one 
comfort ; as soon as I discerned their greed, I abstracted 
the Bible from among the books, also the sentences and 
the other books of which I was specially fond.^ I did not 



^ Se7ite7icias et alios lihros quos viajis dili^ebam. In another passage 
(272) he says the only books he had were a Bible and a breviary ; 
perhaps by Senteftcias he refers to the latter book. Among the books 
which Sartach kept, we are told (380), there were a copy of the 



FRIAU WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IO7 

dare abstract the Psalter of my lady the Queen, for it had 
been too much noticed on account of the gilded pictures 
in it. And so we were sent back with the two remaining 
carts to our lodgings. Then came he who was to guide us 
to Baatu, and he wanted to start at once. I told him 
that on no account would I take the carts, and this he 
reported to Coiac, who ordered that we should leave them 
and our servant with him, and this we did. 

Travelling then due east toward Baatu, we came on the 
third day (sth August) to the Etilia,^ and when 1 saw its 
waters, I wondered from where away up in the north (259) 
so much water could come down. 

Before we left Sartach, the above mentioned Coiac and 
a number of scribes of the court said to us : *' You must 
not say that our lord is a Christian. He is not a Christian, 
but a Moal." For the name of Christian seems to them 
that of a nation. They have risen so much in their pride, 
that though they may believe somewhat in the Christ, yet 
will they not be called Christians, wishing to exalt their 
own name of Moal above all others, nor will they be called 
Tartars. The Tartars were another people of whom I have 
heard as follows. 



Bible in verses, and a work in Arabic worth thirty bezants, or about 
;^i6 loj. These two books, together with the Psalter, were perma- 
nently kept by Sartach, but all the others were given back to the 
traveller when he stopped at Sartach's camp on his way back to 
Syria. 

^ Ptolemy was the first classical writer to mention the Volga, which 
he calls Rha, Menander (229) calls it Attila^ Constantine Porphy- 
rogenitus {De Adminis.^ 105) uses the two forms Atel (*At^X) and Etel 
(*Er€X), while Theophanes {C/tronolo^ta, i, 545) calls \i Aial {*\Ta\). 
The original of these names is the Turkish atel or itll. meaning 
" river." The name Volga was already employed by the Russians in 
Rubruck's time ; both Pian de Carpine {supra, p. 8) and Friar 
Benedict {supra, p. 34) use it, but they thought this river emptied into 
the Black Sea. The name Volga is derived, I think, from that of the 
Bulgars, who lived on its banks, in the present government of Kazan ; 
though it has been commonly supposed they took their name from the 




JOURNEY OF 

[T the time when the Franks took Antioch^ the sove- 
reignty of these northern regions belonged to a 
certain Con cham. Con was his proper name, c/iam 
his title, which means the same as soothsayer. All 
soothsayers are called ckam, and so all their princes are 
called cAam, because their government of the people 
depends on divination. Now we read in the history of 
Antioch, that the Turks sent for succor against the Franks 



^ The Crusaders captured Antioch in a.d. 1098. The original of 
our traveller's Con cham is Gur Khan, " the Universal Khan," a title 
taken in 1125 by Yeh-lii Ta-shih, the founder of the Kara-Khitai 
dynasty. In 11 26 he established his capital at Belasagun, on the 
Chu (or Hi) river (Bretschneider, Med. Geoj^., loi, 109 ; d'Ohsson, i, 
165). The title Khan^ Rubruck's Cham^ though of very great antiquity, 
was only used by the Turks after a.d. 560, at which time the use of 
the vf or d Khatun (Rubruck's eaten, 315) came in use for the wives 
of the Khan, who himself was termed Ilkhan. The older title of 
Shan-yii did not, however, completely disappear among them, for 
Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or Turko- 
mans, still bore the title of Jenuyeh, which Sir Henry Rawlinson 
{Proc. Roy, Geo. Soc, v, 15) takes to be the same word as that tran- 
scribed Shan-yii by the Chinese (see ChHen Han sku, bk. 94, and 
Chou shu, bk. 50, 2). 

Although the word Khakhan occurs in Menander's account of the 
embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I have found of it in a 
western writer is in the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontium, where 
(571), under the year 1239, he uses it in the form Cacanus. The proper 
use of the works Khan and kadn is thus stated by Quatrem^re, 10, 84, 
et seq. : '' We find in the historians two different names to designate the 
Mongol monarchs, that of hhan and that of hadn. The first, which is 
common to the Mongol language and to the other Tartar dialects, was 
the title that Chinghiz took, passed since to a portion of the princes of 
his family, and is given still in our days to the sovereigns of the 
different peoples of Northern Asia. As to the name kadn, the first 
monarch who bore it was Oktai, who transmitted it to his successors, 
to the exclusion of all the other Mongol princes. This title was 
doubtless higher than that of Man, since the emperors of the prin- 
cipal dynasty had adopted it to distinguish themselves from the other 
khans^ over whom they exercised the right of sovereignty .... I 
do not hesitate to admit that kadn is only due to the slightly-altered 
pronunciation of the (Mongol) word Kkakan ;" see also Lacouperie, 
Khan, Khakan and other Tartar Titles. 

The title Khakhan is used by Simon of St. Quentin (Vincent of 
Beauvais, bk. xxxi, ch. xxxii, 452<r?) under the form Gogcham, which 
means, he says, " Emperor, King." The title Khakan being once 
transcribed Gog-cham, it was but natural for Simon to give to Mangu, 
whom he takes for the brother of Kuyuk, the bearer oif the title, the 
name of Magog, as he, in common with most Europeans of his time, 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IO9 

to King Con cham ; for from these parts came all the 
Turks.^ That Con (260) was of Caracatay. Now Cai-a means 
black, and Catay is the name of a people, so Caracatay is 
the same as "Black Catay/'^ And they are so called to 
distinguish them from the Cathayans who dwell by the 
ocean in the east, and of whom I shall tell you hereafter. 
Those Caracatayans lived in highlands {alpibus) through 
which I passed, and at a certain place amidst these alps 



believed that the Mongols were the people of Gog and Magog spoken 
of by Ezekiel the Prophet (xxxviii, 1-5, 15, 16; xxxix, 6, 11-16). 
He also uses the word Chan^ or Chaam^ which means, he says, 
" King or Emperor, magnificent or magnified" {magnificus sive magjii- 
ficatus). 

The wordAV/^;;/, meaning a sorcerer, a shaman, which our traveller 
takes to be the same as Khan or Khakan^ has not even an etymo- 
logical connection with it ; see infra. 

^ The earliest mention of the Turks is found in the Chou shu 
(a.d. 557-581), bk. 50. The customs of this people resembled 
closely those which Rubruck and his contemporaries ascribe to the 
Tartars in their times, especially as regards the funeral rites and the 
rules governing marriage, the worship of Heaven and Earth, etc. 
Menander refers to them in his account of Zemarchus' mission ; he 
calls them (227) '* the Turks who used to be called Sacae." Theo- 
phanes Byzantius {Frag. Hist. Grace. ^ iv, 270) speaks of " the Turks 
who used to be called Messagetae in olden times, and who are called 
by the Persians in their language Kermichiones (Kfp/zixtcoi'a)," while 
Theophylactus (124) refers to the " Huns who live in the north and east, 
and whom the Persians call Turks." The same author (286) confirms 
what the Chou shu says about their cult. Pian de Carpine does not 
mention the Turks, and only once Turkia, though he in one passage 
(680) refers to the " Soldim of Urum," the Seldjuk kingdom of Rum, 
Friar William's Turkia. Our author would seem to be well aware 
of the racial affinities between the Turks and the Mongols. Benedict 
{supra., p. 37) uses the word Turkia to designate Turkestan (see 
also William of Tyr, 22, 24). 

'^ The dynasty of the Khara-Khitai, called Hsi (or Western) Liao 
by the Chinese, was founded in a.d. 1224 by Yeh-lii Ta-shih, a prince 
of the Khitan dynasty of Liao, which had just been destroyed in 
northern China by the Nii-chen Tartars. No satisfactory explanation 
of the origin of the name "Black Khitai" has been given ; Bret- 
schneider has given a complete translation of the article on the Hsi Liao 
found in the History of the Liao {Liao shih\ followed by other trans- 
lations drawn from the annals of the Kin and Yuan dynasties {Med. 
Geog., 96, et seq. ; see also d'Ohsson, i, 165 ; and Yule, Cathay., 178, ct 
seq.). Bretschneider states that the explanation given by d'Herbelot 
{Bibl. Orient.^ ii, 203) of the name Kara Khitai is absurd ; its name is 
there derived from the people who bore it living in the woods ; 
d'Herbelot explains the name Kara Mongol in a like manner. 



no JOURNEY OF 

dwelt a certain Nestorian, a mighty shepherd and lord 
over a people called Nayman,^ who were Nestorian 
Christians. When Con cham died, that Nestorian raised 
himself to be king (in his stead) and the Nestorians used 
to call him King John, and to say things of him ten times 
more than was true. For this is the way of the Nestorians 
who come from these parts : out of nothing they will 
make a great story, just as they have spread abroad that 
Sartach is a Christian, and so of Mangu chan and Keu chan,^ 
because they show more respect to Christians than to other 
people ; though of a truth they are not Christians. So 
great reports went out concerning this King John ; though 
when I passed through his pasture lands,^ no one knew 
anything of him save a few Nestorians. (261) On those 
pasture lands lived Keu chan, to whose court went Friar 
Andrew, and I also passed through them on my way back. 
This John had a brother, also a mighty shepherd, whose 
name was Unc ,* and he lived beyond the alps of the 



^ Plan de Carpine (752) states that the Naiman were heathens. It 
was not when the first Gur-Khan of the Kara Khitai died that the 
Naiman prince seized the throne, but in 121 1 or 1212, when the last 
Gur-Khan was dethroned byGuchluk Khan (Rubruck's King John) of 
the Naimans. Mohammedan and Chinese authorities agree on this 
point (d'Ohsson, i, 167, ef seg. ; Bretschneider, Meci.Geo^., 113), The 
Naiman were a Turkish tribe (Howorth, History^ i, Pt. i, 20, 691). 
Sven Hedin, op. cit.^ i, 316, ii, 672, mentions a tribe of Naiman 
Kirghiz living on the Eastern Pamirs. The word Naiman means 
" light" in Turki. Ney Elias {Tarikh-i-rashidi^ 74, 93) says the name 
of this people must have been Naiman-Uighurs. 

2 Kuyuk Khan. The MSS. usually write this Kenchaniy but in 
some passages we find the form Keu chan^ which is a much better 
transcription. 

3 Pascua^ which our author seems to use as synonymous with 
alpes. 

* Unc chan is the Togrul of Rashideddin, a son of Gurkhan Khan 
of the Keraits (d'Ohsson, i, 51). Marco Polo (i, 227) speaks of " Unc 
Can, the same that we call Prester John." Palladius {op. cit., 23) has 
shown how some of the confusion concerning Ung Khan has arisen, 
the title of Wang Khan (Ung Khan) being transferred from Prester 
John, already dead at the time, to the Turkish tribe of Wang-Ku 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 1 1 

Caracatayans, some three weeks journey from his brother, 
and he was lord of a little town called Caracarum/ and 
the people he had under his rule were called Crit and 
Merkit,^ and they were Nestorian Christians. But that 
lord of theirs had abandoned the worship of Christ, and 
had taken to idolatry, having about him priests of the 
idols, who are all invokers of demons and sorcerers. 
Beyond those pasture lands, some x or xv days, were the 



(Ongu, Raschideddin's Ongot). The whole subject of Prester John has 
been so admirably discussed by Yule {Marco Polo^ i, 229, et seq.) that 
nothing remains to be said about it. 

^ Villule que dicitur Caracarum. The name of this famous town 
is variously written in the MSS., Caracarum^ Caracaron^ Carecarum^ 
Caratorum^ Caratharum, I have everywhere used the first form, 
which is also that most frequently found in the MSS. Pian de Carpine 
(608) is the first western traveller to mention it by name. He writes it 
Caracaron ; he did not visit the city, though he got to within half a 
day's journey of it. 

2 D'Avezac i^op. cit.y 534) has suggested that Friar William's Crit 
and Merkit should be corrected to Crit and Me crit ^ so as to agree 
with Pian de Carpine's statement (645). D'Avezac takes Crit,' Merkit for 
a double word like Longa and Solanga, Chin and Machin, etc., and 
identifies them with the Keraits. Howorth {History^ i, Pt. 1, 699) agrees 
with d'Avezac's views. That our traveller should have grouped the 
two names together on account of the similarity of sound is probable, 
but that he meant to refer the two names to one people is very 
doubtful. Yule {Marco Polo^ i, 231) thinks Friar William's Crit and 
Merkit are the Keraits and Mekrits, the latter already mentioned by 
Pian de Carpine (645) under the form Merkit. While the Keraits 
were undoubtedly Nestorian Christians (see Quatremere, 93), our 
traveller is, it would seem, wrong in thinking that the Mekrits had 
been converted to Christianity. The Keraits lived on the Orkhon 
and the Tula, S.E. of Lake Baikal ; Abulfaraj relates their conversion 
to Christianity in 1007 by the Nestorian Bishop of Merv. Rashided- 
din, however, says their conversion took place in the time of Chingis 
Khan (d'Ohsson, i, 48 ; Chabot, op. cit., 14). D'Avezac (536) identifies, 
with some plausibility, I think, the Keraits with the K'i-le (or T'ieh-le) 
of the early Chinese annals. The name K'i-le was applied in the 
third century, A.D., to ail the Turkish tribes, such as the Hui-hu 
(Uigurs), Kieh-ku (Kirghiz) Alans, etc., and they are said to be the 
same as the Kao-ch'e, from whom descended the Cangie of Rubruck 
{Tane^ shu, bk. 217, i ; Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 344, 9, bk. 347, 4). As to 
the Merkits, or Merkites, they were a nomadic people of Turkish 
stock, with a possible infusion of Mongol blood. They are called by 
Mohammedan writers Uduyut, and were divided into four tribes. 
They lived on the Lower Selinga and its feeders (d'Ohsson, i, 54 ; 
Howorth, History, i, Pt. I, 22, 698). 



112 JOURNEY OF / 

pasture lands of the Moal,^ who were very poor people, 
without a chief and without religion except sorcery and 
s<x>thsaying, such as all follow in those parts. And next 



* Moai. Friar William's transcription of the word Mongol seems 
to be taken from the Turki form of that word, Mogul. The earliest 
n\ention I have found of the name Mongol in oriental works occurs 
in the Chinese annals of the After T'ang period (a.d. 923-934), where 
it occurs in the form Meng-ku. In the annals of the Liao dynasty 
(A.I). 916-1125) it is found under the form Meng-ku-li. The first 
occurrence of the name in the Tung chien kang-mu is, however, in 
the 6th year Shao-hsing of Kao-tsung of the Sung (a.d. 1136). It is 
just possible that we may trace the word back a little earlier than the 
After T'ang period, and that the Meng-wa (or ngo^ as this character 
may have been pronounced at the time), a branch of the Shih-wei, a 
Tungusic or Kitan people living around Lake Keule, to the east of 
the Baikal, and along the Kerulun which empties into it, during the 
seventh and subsequent centuries, and referred to in the Tang shu 
(bk. 219), is the same as the later Meng-ku. Though I have been 
unable to find, as stated by Howorth {History^ i, pt. I, 28), that the 
name Meng-ku occurs in the T'ang shu, his conclusion that the 
northern Shih-wei of that time constituted the Mongol nation proper, 
is very likely correct. " On tracing the Mongols to the Shih-wei," he 
says {op. sup. cit.^ 31) '* we connect them to some extent with the 
Kitan who were descended from the Shi-wei ; and if this be well 
grounded, we connect them further with the Sian-pi and Uhuan, who 
were of the same stock as the Khitans, and also with the Yuan-yuan." 

I. J. Schmidt {Ssanang Setzen^ 380) derives the name Mongol from 
mong, meaning " brave, daring, bold," while Rashideddin says it means 
*• simple, weak" (d'Ohsson, i, 22). The Chinese characters used to 
transcribe the name mean " dull, stupid," and " old, ancient," but they 
are used purely phonetically. Simon of St. Quentin (Vincent of 
Beauvais, bk. xxxi, ch. xxxiv, 452<2) says that the Tartars called them- 
selves Mongli or Mongol^ and Pian de Carpine (645) transcribes the 
name Mongal. In Byzantine works the only mention I have found of 
the name is in Pachymeres (i, 344), who speaks of " the Tochari who 
call themselves Muguls (Ovs avToi MovyovXiovs \4yov(rLv)." 

The Mongols of the present day are commonly called by the 
Chinese Ta-tziiy but this name is resented by the Mongols as oppro- 
bious, though it is but an abbreviated form of the name Ta-ta-izu^ in 
which, according to Rubruck, they once gloried. 

Pian de Carpine (645) thus describes the country occupied by the 
Mongols at the time of the birth of Chingis Khan. " There is a 
certain country in the East which, as previously stated, is called 
Mongal. . That country had once four nations : one called Yeka 
Mongal, or the Great Mongals, the second called Su- Mongal, or 
Aquatic- Mongals, though they called themselves Tartars from a 
certain river which flows through their country and which is called 
Tatar (or Tartar) ; another was called Merkit ; the fourth Mecrit. All 
these nations had the same physical appearance and spoke one 
language, though they were divided among themselves into provinces 
and principalities" (conf. Haithon, Hist. Orient.^ 26 ; see also supra^ 
p. Ill, note 2, and infra, p. 115, note 2). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. II 3 

to the Moal were other poor people, who were called 
Tartars.^ Now King John being dead without an heir, 



^ Tartari. The earliest date to which I have been able to trace 
back the name Tartar is a.d. 732. We find mention made in a 
Turkish inscription found on the river Orkhon and bearing that date, of 
the Tokuz Tatar, or " Nine (tribes of) Tatars," and of the Otuz Tatar, 
or "Thirty (tribes of) Tatars." It is probable that these tribes were 
then living between the Oguz or Uigur Turks on the west, and the 
Kitan on the east (Thomsen, Inscriptions de P Orkhon, 98, 126, 140). 
Mr. Thos. Watters tells me that the Tartars are first mentioned by 
the Chinese in the period extending from a.d. 860 to 874 : the 
earliest mention I have discovered, however, is under date of a.d. 
880 {^Wu tai shih, bk. 4). We also read in the same work 
(bk. 74, 2) that " The Ta-ta were a branch of the Mo-ho (the name 
the Nfi-chen Tartars bore during the Sui and T'ang periods : Ma 
Tuan-lin, bk. 327, 5). They first lived to the north of the Kitan. 
Later on they were conquered by this people, when they scattered, 
a part becoming tributaries of the Kitan, another to the P'o-hai (a 
branch of the Mo-ho), while some bands took up their abode in the 
Yin shan in southern Mongolia, north of the provinces of Chih-li and 
Shan-hsi, and took the name of Ta-ta^ In 981 the Chinese ambas- 
sador to the Prince of Kao-chang (Karakhodjo, some twenty miles 
south-east of Turfan) traversed the Ta-ta country. They then seem 
to have occupied the northern bend of the Yellow River. He gives 
the names of some nine tribes of Ta-ta living on either side of the 
river. He notes that their neighbours to the east were Kitan, and 
that for a long time they had been fighting them after the occupation 
of Kan-chou by the Uigurs (Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 336, 12-14). ^^ may 
gather from this that these Tartars were already settled along the 
Yellow River and the Yin shan (the valley in which is now the 
important frontier mart of Kuei-hua Ch'eng) at the beginning of the 
ninth century, for the Uigurs, driven southward by the Kirghiz, first 
occupied Kan-chou in north-western Kan-su, somewhere about 
A.D. 842. 

Turning to western sources of information, we find that Byzantine 
writers have all classed the Tartars among the Sacae or Scythic 
nations, which included all the tribes, without any regard to 
ethnic or linguistic affinities, which at one time or another had 
occupied northern and western Asia. Thus George Acropolita, in his 
Annals, calls the Tartars by the name of Tachari {Taxdpt)j or 
Tacharioi (Taxapioi), though in one passage (Bonn edit., 58) he uses 
the name Tatars (Tardpt). Pachymeres invariably calls these people 
Tochari (Toxdpi), though in one place he uses the name Mugiils. 
Among the writers of the thirteenth century in Western Europe the 
name is uniformly written Tartari in Latin, and Tartarins in French. 
In one case only, in the letter of Ivo of Narbonne, dated 1243 
(see supra. Introduction), have I found the form Tatar, or Tattar, 
used. 

Howorth {History, \, Pt. I, 702) derives, on the authority of Wolff, 
the name Tartar from a Tungusic word, tartar or tata, " to drag, to 
pull," and thinks it is equivalent to our word "nomad." Some 
Western contemporary writers derived the name Tartar from a river 



/ 



114 JOURNEY OF 

his brother Unc was brought in {ditahis est), and caused 
himself to be proclaimed chan, and his flocks and herds 
were driven about as far as the borders of the Moal. At 
that time there was a certain Chingis, a blacksmith,^ among 
the people of Moal (262), and he took to lifting the cattle 
of Unc chan whenever he could, so that the herdsmen com- 
plained to their lord Unc chan. So he got together an 
army, and made a raid into the land of the Moal^ seeking 
for this Chingis, but he fled among the Tartars and hid 
himself there. Then this Unc chan having got great booty 
from the Moal and the Tartars went back. Then that 
Chingis spoke to those Tartars and to those Moal, saying : 
" Tis because we are without a chief, that our neighbours 
oppress us." And they made him chief and captain of 



called Tar or Tartar, which flowed through their early home (Matth. 
Paris, Chron. Maj., iv, 78). Others thought the name was taken from 
the great island of Taraconta in their country, while others again 
imagined it was taken from *'the broad country of 7]^^rj/" (Matth. 
Paris, op. cit., iv, 109. The Russian archbishop, Peter, who visited 
Lyons in 1245, thought the Tartars descended from the Midianites, who, 
fleeing before Gideon, h^d hidden themselves in the farthest corners 
of the north in a vast desert called Etreu, where they lived in high and 
impenetrable mountains, in caves and dens, whence they had driven 
the lions and dragons, their first denizens. The English captive 
among the Mongols, who supplied Ivo of Narbonne with most of the 
details contained in his letter previously referred to, had also a vague 
notion of the remote eastern origin of the Mongols. William of 
Nangis (365) says that David, the messenger of Ilchikadai to St. 
Louis in 1248, stated that the name Tartar was derived from that of 
the country where the great Khan lived, and which was called Tarta. 
Whatever the opinion concerning the origin of the name, nearly all 
Christians in the first half of the thirteenth century believed that the 
Tartars were of the lost tribes of Israel. So strong was this belief 
that the Tartars were of Jewish descent, that we are told that the 
Jews of Europe, especially those of Germany, thinking that the 
Mongols were sent by God to free them from the oppression of 
the Christians, endeavoured in 1241 to smuggle arms and provisions 
to them (Matth. Paris, op. cit., iv, 131-133). 

^ The name is variously written in the MSS. Chingis^ Cyngis, and 
Cingis. I have preferred the first mode of transcription, the one 
which Pian de Carpinc (646 et scq.) invariably uses. This writer makes 
no mention of the legend giving to Chingis the trade of a blacksmith, 
on the origin of which see infra; he only says (646) that he was *'a 
mighty hunter before the Lord." 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. II5 

the Tartars and the Moal. Then he secretly got to- 
gether an army and fell upon Unc chan and defeated 
him, so that he fled to Cathay. And it was there that 
his daughter was captured, and Chingis gave her to 
wife to one of his sons, who by her had Mangu, who 
now reigneth.^ ^ 

. Now this Chingis used to despatch the Tartars in every 
direction, and so their name spread abroad, for everywhere 
was heard the cry: "The Tartars are coming!" But 
through the many wars they have been nearly all killed off, 
and now these Moal would like to extinguish even the 
name and raise their own in its stead.^ The country in 
which they first lived, and where is still the ordti of Chingis 



^ Dokuz Khatun, a daughter of Iku, son of Unc chan, married 
Tului, and at his death his son Hulagu (Quatrem^re, 93). Chaur 
Bigui (or Beighi), daughter of Unc chan, was to have married 
Chingis' son Juchi in 1202, but Unc chan at the last moment refused 
his consent to the marriage. Mangu Khan was son of Siurkukteni, or 
Siurkukiti Beighi (Pian de Carpine, 666, calls her Seroctan), daughter 
of Djagambo, brother of Unc chan, and his father was Tului, Chingis' 
son. Chingis himself married a daughter of this same brother of 
Unc chan ; her name was Abgah Beighi (Quatrem^re, 91 ; d'Ohsson, 
i, 67 ; ii, 59» 267 ; Yule, Cathay, 147). 

2 Rashideddin says : " The name of Tatar has been celebrated the 
world over from most ancient times. The Tatar nation, divided into 
a great many branches, comprised (at the time of Chingis Khan) 
about seventy thousand huts. Its territory was near the Chinese 
territory and lake Buyir . . . The Tatars were most of the time sub- 
jects or tributaries of the emperor of Khitai . . . notwithstanding their 
internal discords, they made in old times great conquests ; they be- 
came so powerful and feared that the other Turkish peoples passed 
themselves off as Tatars, and held themselves honoured by this name ; 
just as to-day the Chelairs, Tatars, Uirats, Unguts, Keraits, Naiman, 
Tanguts and others glory in the name of Mongol, rendered illustrious 
by Chinguiz Khan and his descendants ; a name they would before 
that have spurned. The young men of all these nations believe at 
present that their ancestors always bore the name of Mongol ; it is 
not so, for anciently the Mongols were only one of the Turkish nations. 
It is only since Alankua, that is to say three centuries, that the name 
exists. It was given to the descendants of that princess, who had be- 
come very numerous" (d'Ohsson, i, 428). Rashideddin brought his 
history of the Mongols down to the year 1303; therefore, according 
to him, the name of Mongol had first appeared in the eleventh 
century. The Chinese authorities cited (j///nz, p. 112, note) take it 
back to the first half of the tenth. 

I 2 



Il6 JOURNF.Y OF 

(263)chan, is called Onankerule.^ But because Caracarum 
is the district where their power first began to spread, 
they hold it their royal city, and near there they elect 
their chan. 




JF Sartach I know not whether he believes in 
the Christ or not. This I do know, that he 
will not be called a Christian, and it even seemed 
to me that he mocked the Christians. For he is on 
the road of the Christians, to wit, of the Ruthenians, 
Blacs, Bulgarians of Minor Bulgaria, Soldaians, Kerkis 
and Alans, all of whom pass by him when going to 
his father's ordu carrying presents to him, so he shows 
himself most attentive to them. Should, however, Saracens 
come along carrying more presents than they, they are 
sent along more expeditiously. He has Nestorian priests 
around him who strike a board and chant their offices.^ 



^ Onankerule^ the country watered by the Orkhon and Kerulun 
rivers, i.e.^ the country to the south and south-east of Lake Baikal. 
The headquarters {ya-chang) of the principal chief of the Uigurs in 
the eighth century was 500 //. (about 165 miles) south-west of the 
confluence of the Wen-kun ho (Orkhon) and the Tu-lo ho (Tura). 
Its ruins, sometimes but wrongly confounded with those of the Mon- 
gol city of Karakorum, some twenty miles from it, built in 1235 ^y 
Ogodai, are now known by the name of Kara balgasun, " Black City." 
The name Onankerule seems to be taken from the form Onan-ou- 
Keloran^ which occurs in Mohammedan writers (Quatrem^re, \i^ et 
seq. ; see also T^ang shUy bk. 43<^). 

2 Pulsant tabulam. A board or bar of iron suspended to a rope 
has, from apparently the earliest times, been used by the (ireek and 
Eastern Christians in church worship instead of bells. This board or 
bar is called semaniron (a-rjfiavTpov) or simandro {<Tifiav8po) in Greek, 
the Armenians call \\.jamahar. The mallet used to strike it is called 
roptron (ponTpov) (Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De Ceremo,^ ii, 235 ; 
Chardin, Voyages^ i, 224 and Tournefort, i, 45). Pian de Carpine 
(766) says the Nestorians at the court of Kuyuk Khan " beat (the 
semantron) at the hours, according to the fashion of the Greeks." Bells 
were not, however, unknown among the Nestorians. Rashidcddin says 
that the Christians at the chapel before the tent of Dokuz Khatun 
— the Kcrait Christian wife of Hulagu — **rang the bells" (Quatre- 
m^re, 94, 95). The Constable of Armenia, Scmpad, also states that 



FRIAK WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. II7 

And there is another one called Berka, a brother of 
Baatu,^ who has his pasture lands toward the Iron Gate, 
where passes the road followed by all the Saracens coming 
from Persia and Turkia, and going to Baatu, and who 
when passing through bring him presents ; and he has 
made himself a Saracen, and he does not allow (264) pork 
to be eaten in his ordu. When we came back Baatu had 
ordered him to move from that place to beyond the Etilia 
to the east, not wanting Saracens to pass by where he was, 
it appearing to him harmful. During the iiii days we 
were at Sartach's ordu^ we were not once furnished with 
food, and only once with a little cosmos. 

On the road between him and his father we were in great 
fear, for the Ruthenians, Hungarians and Alans, their 
slaves, of whom there are very great numbers among them, 
are in the habit of banding together xx or xxx in number, 
and run off at night (armed) with arrows and bows, and 
whomsoever they find at night they kill. During the day 
they hide, and when their horses are tired, they come by 
night to the herds of horses in the pastures and change 
their horses, and take one or two with them to eat when 
necessary. Our guide greatly feared some adventure with 
them.^ On this part of the road we should have died of 



the Christians in the Mongol camps pulsant campanas et percutiunt 
tabula^^ (Will, of Nangis, 362 ; see also Mosheim, Hist.Eccles. Tartar.^ 
Appendix 50). Tibetan lamas also use on some occasions, and to 
summon the monks to attend certain ceremonies, a board about six 
feet long and a foot broad, which is struck with a piece of hard wood. 
This board is called ganti. It is very likely that they originally got 
this contrivance from the Nestorians. 

1 This Mongol prince's name is also written Bercai, Berekeh and 
Berekai. He was the third son of Juchi. His brothers were Batu, 
Urda, Shiban, Tangkute, Bergachar and Tuka-Timur (d'Ohsson, ii, 8). 
Pian de Carpine (668) writes his name Berca. Sartach, dying shortly 
after Batu, was succeeded in his command by his young son Ulagchi ; 
but he also died after a few months, and was succeeded by Berka in 
1256. This prince died in 1265, ^^^ ^^'^s buried at Sarai on the Volga 
(d'Ohsson, iii, 377, 419 ; Hammer-Purgstall, Goldenen Horde^ 144-181). 

2 Conf supra, p. 3, Friar John's account. 



Il8 JOURNEY OF 

hunger, had we not carried with us a small supply 'of 
biscuit. 

So we came to the Etilia, the greatest of rivers, for it is 
four times greater than the Seine, very deep, coming from 
Greater Bulgaria, which is (265) in the north, flowing 
southward, and emptying into a certain lake, or sea, which 
is now called Sea of Sirsan, from a certain city on its coast 
in Persia.^ Isidorus, however, calls it the Caspian sea,^ for 
it has the Caspian mountains and Persia to the south, 
the Mulihec mountains, that is the mountains of the 
Axasins to the east,^ which touch the Caspian mountains ; 
to the north is this wilderness in which are now the 
Tartars, though at first there were here certain Comans 



^ Mare Sirsan. One MS. reads Sir tarty and two others Sir can. 
This may be a copyist's error for Mare Servanicuin or " Sea of 
Shirwan," which Vincent of Beauvais uses (bk. xxx, ch. xcvii, 440^) to 
designate the Caspian. Sirsan may also be for (Taba)ristan, the 
Caspian being known as " Sea of Tabaristan" by the early Moham- 
medan writers (Masudi, i, 263 ; Ibn Khaldun, 156). Both of these 
suppositions are open to the objection that there was no town of 
Shirwan or Tabaristan. The only other suggestion I have to make, 
is that " Sea of Sirsan" is the " Sea of Kegham," or ** Lake of Sevan," 
names the Armenians used in the thirteenth century to designate the 
Caspian (Dulaurier, 235). Sea of Kegham is the same as Marco 
Polo's (i, 54) " Sea of Ghel or Ghelan." Polo calls the Caspian in 
another passage (ii, 495) *"" Sea of Sarain" (Sarai ?). Friar Odoric 
calls it " Sea of Bacuc," and the Catalan map {Not. et Extr.y xiv, 126), 
^^ Mar del Sarra e de Bacu" a combination of the two preceding 
names. 

2 Etymologiaruniy 486, where he classes it among " the gulfs of 
the sea." 

3 Also written in the MSS. Muliech and Musihet. The correct 
reading is Mulidet^ from the Arabic fnolhid, "impious, a heretic." 
This famous sect of Melahideh^ or Hachichihs, whence our word 
Assassin, is also known as the Ismaelians and Bathenis, or "partisans 
of the inner cult." They were exterminated by Hulagu. Joinville 
(138, 139) gives some interesting details concerning them. He writes 
their name Assacis (see Hammer, Hist, of the Assassi/ts, 41 et seq. \ 
Michaud, Histoire^'x^ 472 et seq. \ Quatrem6re, 122; Bretschneider, 
Med. Travel.^ 63, 78 ; Cordier, Odoric, 473, et seq.). Friar William 
is, of course, wrong in placing the Ismaelians to the east of the 
Caspian. They were scattered through Syria, Irak, Dilem and 
Khorasan. Their stronghold, Alamut, was north-east of Kasvin, south 
of the Caspian. It was taken and destroyed by Hulagu in 1256 
(see also infra). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. II9 

called Cangle.^ And on that side {i.e., the north) it 
receives the Etilia, which rises in summer as does the 
Nile of Egypt. To the west of it are the mountains of 
the Alans, the Lesgians, the Iron Gate and the mountains 
of the Georgians. So this sea has mountains on three 
sides, but on the north it has this plain. Friar Andrew 
went himself along two sides of it, the southern and the 
eastern, and I along the other two, the northern in going 
from Baatu to Mangu chan, and again in coming back ; 
and along the western side in coming back from Baatu to 
Syria. One can go around it in iiii months,^ and it is 

^ The Candle of our traveller are called by Pian de Carpine (749) 
Cangitae. They are called ICang (or Hang)li or Kanglin by Chinese 
writers of the Mongol period, and Kankali Turks by contemporary 
Mohammedan writers, who say that in the beginning of the thirteenth 
century they lived to the east of the Jaik river (Ural), which is the 
location assigned them by Friars John, Benedict and William (Bret- 
schneider, i1/^^. Geog., 147 ; d'Ohsson, i, 197). Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus {De Adminis., 164, 167) speaks of a tribe of Kagcar (KdyKop) 
or Kangar (Kayyap), which word, he adds, means " noble, strong," 
living between the Volga and the Jaik (Ural), and who were a branch 
of the Patzinakitae (the Bejnak of the Arabs, the Petchenegs of the 
Turks). Abulghazi, as previously remarked, derives the name 
Kankali from kang, "a cart." The western Turks were also at 
one time known as Kao-ch^e, '* High carts," by the Chinese. These 
characters, which happily describe a peculiar feature of Turkish life at 
the time, were, however, used phonetically, and transcribe an original 
which must have closely approximated to the name given this people 
by Mohammedan writers. Deguignes {Histoire, i, pt. 2, 389), and since 
then W. Schott, have endeavoured to identify the Kang-li with the 
people of Kang-chiu or Sogdiana; but, as pointed out by Bretschneider 
(Med. Geog., 150), similarity of sound is the only ground for the identifi- 
cation. Klaproth (Tahl. de VAsie, 279) says that several Nogai Tartar 
tribes still bear the name of Qangly, and Radloff (Turkstdnime 
Sibiriens, 22) mentions a small branch of the Usbeks living in the 
Sarafstan valley called Kangly (see Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 147, 
and d'Ohsson, i, 197). 

2 This was the view held by classical authors. Dionysius Periegetes 
says it has a circumference of three months' journey (Miiller, Geog. 
Graeci Mznores, ii, 344). Herodotus (i, 276) had stated that the 
Caspian had no connection with any other sea, and that its length was 
fifteen days in a row-boat, its greatest breadth an eigbt-days' voyage ; 
but all his successors down to Ptolemy believed that the Caspian 
was connected by a long and narrow gulf with the Ocean. Isidorus 
simply followed Pliny (vi, 36), who believed in the gulf theory 
(Bunbury, ii, 593). Marco Polo (i, 54) gives the length of the Caspian 
as 700 miles (conf Bacon, Opus Majus, i, 354, and Sir John Maunde- 
vile, 266). 



I20 JOURNEY OF 

not true, as stated by Isidorus, that it is a gulf of the 
Ocean. It nowhere reaches the Ocean, but is everywhere 
surrounded by land. 




^LL this country on the west side of this sea, (266) 
from where are the Iron Gates of Alexander and the 
mountains of the Alans, to the northern Maeotide 
marshes where rises the Tanais, used to be called Albania. 
Isidorus says of it that it has dogs in it so big and fierce 
that " they seize bulls and kill lions" : the truth is, as I 
have heard tell, that toward the Northern ocean they make 
dogs to drag carts like oxen, so great is their size and 
strength.^ 

At this place where we reached the Etilia, the Tartars 
have made a new village with a mixed population of 
Ruthenians and Saracens,^ and they ferry across the 



^ Friar William takes this definition of Albania from Isidorus 
{Etymolo^.^ xiv, 501). He there says : " Albania^ thus called from the 
colour of the people, who are born with light {aldo) hair : this begins 
in the East at the Caspian sea, and extends through deserts and wilds 
along the coast of the Northern Ocean to the Palus Maeotis. There 
are great dogs in this country, and so ferocious that they seize bulls 
and pull down lions." Sir John Maundevile(i43) refers to " Albanye'' 
and its " gret Houndes so stronge that they assaylen Lyouns and slew 
hem." Strabo (xi, 4, 431) had already spoken of the excellence of 
the hunting dogs of Albania, but Albania for him was the north- 
eastern slope of the Caucasus, the country of the Alans of our traveller 
(380, 381), to] the north-west of Derbend. Isidorus, however, had 
copied from Solinus (93), who in turn had taken his information 
from Pliny (viii, 51, 343). Hakluyt's text wrongly reads mergitur^ 
" it empties into," the Palus Maeotis, or Sea of Azov (see supra^ 
p. 97, note 2). 

Our traveller, assuming the limits assigned to Albania by Isidorus 
to be correct, has naturally enough supposed that the dogs he heard 
of as used by the Samoyed and other tribes of the far north to draw 
their sledges, were those spoken of by Pliny and others. Ibn Batuta 
(ii? 399' 402) speaks of the dog-sledges used in the " Country of 
darkness" to the north of Bulgar, where the dogs are the traveller's 
only guides (see also Marco Polo, ii, 479). 

2 This would seem to be the town of Ukek, Marco Polo's Ucaca. 
Our traveller says it took over thirty days to go from the town of 



FKIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 121 

envoys going to and coming from the ordii of Baatu ; for 
Baatu is on the farther bank to the east, neither does 
he go beyond this point we had reached when he comes 
north in summer, and he had begun moving southward 
(when we arrived). From January to August he goes up 
to the cool country, as do all of them, and in August they 
begin moving back. 

So we went down the river in a boat from this village 
to his (Baatu's) ordu^ and from that place to the cities of 
Greater Bulgaria^ to the north there are five days. I 



Bulgar to Derbend, and he tells us further on that it took him fifteen 
days to go from Sarai to Derbend, so the village in question must 
have been about ten days north of Sarai. This corresponds well with 
the position of Ukek. Yule {Encycl. Britan.^ xxi, 47) seems to adopt 
this view. Ibn Batuta (ii, 414) says that Ocac (Ukek) was ten days 
from Sarai, and that the mountains of the Russians were distant one 
day from it. The present village of Uwek^ about six miles south of 
Saratov, occupies probably the same position as the Mongol town 
(Yule, Marco Polo, i, 8 ; and F. M. Schmidt, 182). 

1 Villas majoHs Bulgarie. I have no doubt that *' The Great City'' 
is meant, called Bulgar by Mohammedan writers. It was situated 
between Kazan and Simbirsk, below the confluence of the Kama and 
the Volga, near the left bank of the latter. The present village of 
Bolgary or Uspetiskoye occupies the site of the Bulgar of the Mongol 
period. Nicolas and Maffeo Polo visited Bulgar, or Bolgara as 
Marco Polo calls it, in 1261 (Yule, Marco Polo, i, 4, 6). Pian de Carpine 
(747) calls the Bulgars Bilers (the .^^/^r of Abulfeda and Rashideddin). 
See also d'Avezac (490) ; Ibn Batuta (ii, 398). On the commerce of 
Bulgar in the Middle Ages, see Heyd (i, 61), and Quatrem^re (404). 
The question of the early religion of the people of Bulgar is mixed. 
The Mesalek al-absar (270) says : "Formerly, as stated by Masudi and 
other writers, Islam had spread among the Bulgars ; but for a long 
time past this people has renounced the true faith, and is governed 
by princes worshippers of the cross." Masudi states that it was in 
the beginning of the tenth century that Islam penetrated to this 
country, prior to which time the people were fire-worshippers, but 
Prof. Berezin says this event took place as early as the ninth year of the 
Hegira (Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 255-257). Yule {Marco Polo, i, 7) 
says that prior to their conversion to Islam, the people had probably 
professed Christianity. He cites no authority for this opinion, and 
I can find no mention of this fact in either Nestor's Chronicle nor in 
Russian history, where such an important fact would surely have 
been mentioned. The statement in Mesalek al-absar that Islam had 
lost its hold on the people at the end of the thirteenth century, seems 
to be confirmed by a statement made by the Arab historian Makrizi, 
that in A.H. 780 the sheikh Amineddin Mohammed Nasifi came to 
Egypt, and stated that he had been to the Bulgar country, where he 



122 JOURNEY OF 

wonder what devil carried this religion of Machomet 
thither. From the Iron Gate, which is the door out of 
Persia, there are more than thirty days through the desert, 
going up (267) along the Etilia, to this Bulgaria, along 
which route there is no city, only some villages near where 
the Etilia falls into the sea ; and these Bulgarians are the 
worst kind of Saracens, keeping the law of Machomet as 
no others. 

When I saw the ordu of Baatu, I was astonished, for it 
seemed like a great city stretched out about his dwelling, 
with people scattered all about for three or four leagues. 
And as among the people of Israel, where each one knew 
in which quarter from the tabernacle he had to pitch his 
tents,^ so these know on which side of the ordu they must 
place themselves when they set down their dwellings. 
A court {curia) is orda in their language, and it means 
" middle," 2 for it is always in the middle of the people, 
with the exception, however, that no one places himself 
right to the south, for in that direction the doors of the 
court open. But to the right and left they may spread out 
as they wish, according to the lay of the land, so long as 
they do not bring the line of tents down right before or 
behind the court. 

We were first taken to a certain Saracen, who gave us no 
food. The next day we were taken to the court, and they 
had a great awning spread, for the dwelling could not hold 
all the men and women who had come thither. Our guide 
cautioned us to say nothing until Baatu^ should have bid 



had preached Islam to the people, who were plunged in the deepest 
ignorance, and had converted a number (Quatrem^re, 404 ; see also 
infra). 

1 See Numbers, i, 51-53 ; ii, 1-31. 2 g^g supra, p. 57, note i. 

3 Simon of St. Quentin writes the name Batoih, Pian de Carpine 
Bati. Batu, the conqueror of the Kipchak, the commander-in-chief of 
the army which had ravaged Hungary, was son of Tului, son of 
Chingis Khan. Sir John Maundevile (129) refers to " Bathol who 
duellethe at the Cytee of Orda." 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 23 

US speak, and then to speak briefly. He asked also (268) 
whether you had already sent ambassadors to the Tartars. 
I said that you had sent to Keu chan/ but that you would 
not even have sent envoys to him and letters to Sartach if 
you had not believed that they were Christians. Then 
they led us before the pavilion, and we were warned not to 
touch the ropes of the tent, for they are held to represent 
the threshold of the door. So we stood there in our robes 
and barefooted, with uncovered heads, and we were a great 
spectacle unto ourselves. Friar John of Policarp^ had been 
there ; but he had changed his gown, fearing lest he should 
be slighted, being the envoy of the lord Pope. Then we 
were led into the middle of the tent, and they did not 
require us to make any reverence by bending the knee, as 
they are used to do of envoys. We stood before him the 
time to say : " Miserere mei^ DeuSy' and all kept profound 
silence. He was seated on a long seat as broad as a couch, 
all gilded, and with three steps leading up to it, and a lady 
was beside him.^ Men were seated about on his right, and 
ladies on his left : and where the room on the women's 
side was not taken up by them, for there were only present 
the wives of Baatu, men occupied it. A bench with cosfnos 
and big cups of gold and silver, ornamented with precious 
btones, was in the entry of the tent. He looked at us 
intently, and we at him, and he seemed to me to be about 
the height of my lord (269) John de Beaumont,* may his 
soul rest in peace. And his face was all covered at that 



^ Referring to the Mission of Friar Andrew in 1249. 

2 All the MSS. read Policarp. Of course, Friar John of Plan de 
Carpine is referred to. The detail concerning the change of dress is 
not mentioned in Friar John's work ; it is only found in that of his 
companion, Friar Benedict the Pole {supra, p. 38). 

3 Probably his first wife, whose name was Borakchin (d'Ohsson, 
ii, 337). 

* Jean de Beaumont accompanied St. Louis to the Holy Land. 
Joinville calls him " le bon chevalier." His nephew was Guillaume 
de Beaumont, marshal of France, and he also was on this crusade. 



124 JOURNEY OF 

time with reddish spots.^ Finally he bid me speak, and 
our guide told us to bend the knee and speak. I bent one 
- knee as to a man, but he made sign to me to bend both, 
^ which I did, not wishing to dispute over it.2 Then he 
bid me speak, and I, thinking I was praying God, having 
both knees bent, began my speech by saying : " Oh lord, 
we pray God from whom proceedeth all good things, and 
who gave you these worldly goods, to give you hereafter 
celestial ones, for the former without the latter are vain." 
And as he listened attentively, I added : " You must know 
for certain that you shall not have the celestial goods 
unless you have been a Christian ; for God saith : * He 
who shall have believed and have been baptized, shall be 
saved, but he who shall not have believed shall be con- 
demned'." At this he quietly smiled, and the other Moal 
began clapping their hands, laughing at us, and my inter- 
preter stood dumbfounded, and I had to reassure him that 
he be not afraid. Then silence being reestablished, I said : 
" I came to your son, because we had heard that he was a 
Christian, and I brought him letters from the lord King of 
the French. He {i.e.y Sartach) it is who has sent me here to 
you. You must know the reason why." Then he caused me 
to rise, and he asked your name and mine, and that of my 



^ Perfusus gutta rosea. Ducange says gutta rosea is for gutta 
rosacea^ and that it means ^^ rubido in facie, ^^ I can offer no explana- 
tion, unless Batu was then recovering from small-pox or some other 
eruptive disease. Hakluyt renders this by ** he had a fresh ruddie 
colour in his countenance." 

2 The etiquette of the Mongol court appears to have exempted 
those who belonged to clerical orders, whether Christian, Buddhist, 
Taoist or Mohammedan, from performing some at least of the genu- 
flexions and prostrations required of laymen. The Taoist Ch'ang- 
ch'un, when received in 1222 by Chingis Khan, remarks : " It must be 
said here that the professors of the Tao when presented to the 
Emperor were never required to fall upon their knees or to bend their 
heads to the ground {kotow). On entering the imperial tent they 
only made a bow and placed their hands together" (Bretschneider, 
Med. travel.^ 47 ; see also Du Halde, Description, iv, 269, and infra). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 25 

companion and (270) of the interpreter, and he had it all 
written down, and he also asked against whom you were 
waging war, for he had heard that you had left your 
country with an army.^ I replied : " Against the Saracens 
who are profaning Jerusalem, the house of God." He also 
asked whether you had ever sent envoys to him. " To you," 
I said, " never." Then he made us sit down, and had us 
given of his milk to drink, and they hold it to be a great 
honour when anyone drinks cosmos with him in his 
dwelling.^ While sitting there I was looking down, but he 
bid me turn my face up, either wishing to see me better, 
or on account of their sorcery, for they hold it to be a bad 
omen or sign, or as portending evil, if one sits before them 
with face turned down as if in sorrow, and especially so if 
he rest his chin or his cheek in his hand. Then we went 
out, and after a little while our guide came to us, and 
while conducting us to our lodging said to me : " The lord Vk. 



^ As showing the care with which the rules of etiquette of the 
Mongol courts were observed, it is not amiss to cite the following 
description of the audience granted in 1262 by Berka (Sartach's 
successor) to the envoys of the Sultan of Egypt, Beibars. The 
ambassadors were brought into the Khan's tent on the left side of the 
throne, but after presenting their letters they passed to the right side. 
(Pian de Carpine, 746, says that when on his way to the court of Mangu, 
he was placed on the left side of Batu, when received by him, while 
on his return he was seated on his right side.) They knelt on both 
knees ; no one was allowed to enter the royal tent with arms, or even 
strung bows. They were told not to touch with the foot the threshold 
of the tent, not to eat snow, not to wash their clothes within the 
precincts of the royal residence. The tent within which Berka was 
seated was covered with white felt, and lined with silk stuffs, orna- 
mented with pearls and precious stones. It was large enough to hold 
five hundred persons. The Khan was seated on a throne, and his 
first wife was beside him ; fifty or sixty of his officers were seated on 
stools. When Berka's vizir had read the letter of Beibars, the ambas- 
sadors passed with their suite to the right of the throne (d'Ohsson, 
i"> 387-389 ; conf. also infra). 

2 Quatrem6re (354-359) cites many passages from contemporary 
Mohammedan writers, showing that it was a custom of the Mongol 
princes to offer a cup of kumiss or wine to honoured guests. Batu 
would appear to have been of rather pleasing manners. Pian 
de Carpine (746) says he was satis benignus. The Mongols called 
him Sain Khan^ or " The Good Prince" (d'Ohsson, ii, 334). 



126 JOURN^EY OF 

King requests that you remain in this country, but Baatu 
may not do this without the permission of Mangu chan. 
So you and your interpreter must go to Mangu chan. As 
to your companion and the other man, they will go back 
to Sartach, where they will await your return." Then the 
interpreter Homo. Dei began to lament, deeming himself 
lost, and my companion to declare that they might sooner 
cut off his head than separate him from me ; and I said 
that without a companion I could not go, and moreover 
that we really required two servants (271), for should one 
happen to fall ill, I could not be left alone. So he went 
back to the court and told Baatu what I had said. Then 
he commanded ; " Let the two priests and the interpreter 
go, and the clerk return to Sartach." He came back and 
told us the decision ; but when I wanted to speak about 
the clerk, that he might come with us, he said : " Say no 
more about it, for Baatu has settled it, and I dare not go 
again to the court." The clerk Gosset had xxvi ypcrpera 
of your alms and no more ;^ of these he kept x for himself 
and the boy, and he gave the xvi others to Homo Dei for 
us ; and so we parted from each other with tears, he going 
back to Sartach, and we remaining there. 




jN the eve of the Assumption (14th August) he 
(Gosset) reached the ordu of Sartach, and the 
next day the Nestorian priests were dressed in 
our vestments in the presence of Sartach. As for us, 
we were taken to another host who was to provide us 
with lodgings, food and horses, but as we had nothing 
to give him he did it all meanly. We drove about 
{bigavimus) with Baatu for v weeks, following the Etilia 



^ Twenty-six yperpera would make about ^14 lis. The boy {puer) 
was the slave called Nicholas, bought at Constantinople. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 27 

down its course.^ Sometimes my companion was so 
hungry that he would say to me, ahnost with tears in his 
eyes: "It seems to me I shall never get anything to 
eat." (272) The market always follows the ordu of Baatu, 
but it was so far away from us that we could not get there, 
for from lack of horses we had to travel afoot.^ Finally 
some Hungarians who had been clerks found us out, and one 
of them still knew how to sing with much expression, and 
was looked upon by the other Hungarians almost as a 
priest, and was called to the burial of their dead; and 
another of them was well versed in grammar, for he under- 
stood accurately all we said to him, though he could not 
reply. These men were a great consolation to us, bringing 
us cosmos to drink and sometimes meat to eat. I was 
greatly distressed when they asked me for some books, 
as I had none to give them, having only a Bible and a 
breviary. So I said to them : " Bring us tablets {cartas), 
and I will write for you as long as we are here." And 
this they did, and I wrote on both sides of them the hours 
of the Blessed Virgin and the office for the dead. One day 
a Coman joined us, who saluted us in Latin, saying : " Sal- 
vitCy doniine r Much astonished, I returned his salutation, 
and asked him who had taught it him. He said that he 
had been baptized in Hungary by the brethren of our 
order,^ who had taught it to him. He said, furthermore. 



^ The rate of progress of these great camps must have been very 
slow, probably not over six or eight miles a day, often less. In the 
thirty-five days Friar William was with Batu, they did not, in all likeli- 
hood, travel 150 miles. This is the more likely since the Friar, who 
was a very stout man, travelled on foot (see infra and F. M. 
Schmidt, 189). 

^ Conf. what Pian de Carpine says on his treatment at Kuyuk's 
court, supra, p. 26. Simon of St. Quentin says that when at Baiju's 
court he and his companions were reduced to bread and water, with 
now^and then a little milk once a day. 

^ I have not been able to find out the date of the first establishment 
of the Franciscans in Hungary. The Dominicans were there as early 
as 122 1, working at the conversion of the Comans (Mamachio, 



128 JOURNEY OF 

that Baatu had asked him a great deal about us, and that 
he had told him of the condition of our order. 

I saw (273) Baatu riding with all his horde {turbo) ; and 
all the heads of families were riding with him, but accord- 
ing to my estimate there were not over five hundred men. 
At last, about the feast of the Elevation of the Holy Cross 
(14th September), there came a rich Moal to us, whose 
father was a chief of a thousand, which is a high rank 
among them,^ and he said : " I am to take you to Mangu 
chan. The journey is a four months one, and it is so cold 
on it that stones and trees are split by the cold. Think it 
over whether you can bear it." I answered him : " I trust 
that, by the grace of God, we may be able to bear what 
other men can bear." Then he said : " If you cannot 
bear it, I shall abandon you on the road." I replied : 
" That is not right ; we are not going of ourselves, but are 
sent by your lord, so, being entrusted to your care, you 
should not abandon us." Then he said : "All will be well." 
After that he made us show him all our clothing, and what 
seemed to him of little use he made us leave with our host. 
The next day they brought each of us a sheepskin gown, 
breeches of the same material, boots according to their 
fashion, felt stockings, and hoods such as they use. The 
day after the Elevation of the Holy Cross (isth September) 
(274) we started on our ride,^ with two pack horses for the 
three of us, and we rode constantly eastward until the feast 



Annalium^ 646). The Franciscans were established in Bohemia in 
1232 {AnnalectUy ii, 56) ; they may have sent missionaries from there 
to Hungary. 

^ In Mongol mingatan. There were five classes of Mongol officers 
bearing this title ; they managed certain administrative districts. 
Over them were chiefs of ten thousand, and under them chiefs of 
hundreds and of tens (see Yuan shih, bks. 91, 98, and Dev6nsL, Journ. 
Asz'at., ix® serie, viii, 104). 

Yule {Ency. Brit.^ xxi, 47) thinks the point where the traveller left 
the Volga must have been between 48° and 50° N. lat. ; that is to say, 
less than 150 miles S. of the point where he had come upon the 
Volga. F. M. Schmidt accepts this view, which is also mine. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 29 

of All Saints. And through all that country and beyond, 
the Cangle used to live, and they were a branch {parenteld) 
of the Comans. To the north of us was Greater Bulgaria, 
and to the south the Caspian Sea. , 




^FTER travelling xii days from the Etilia,^ we found 
a great river which they call Jagac,^ and it comes 
from the country of Pascatir in the north, and falls 
into this previously-mentioned sea (/.^., the Caspian). The 
language of Pascatir is the same as that of the Hungarians,'^ 
and they are shepherds without any towns whatever, and on 
the west this country confines on Greater Bulgaria.'* From 
this country eastward, and on that side to the north, there 
are no more towns ; so Greater Bulgaria is the last 
country with towns. Twas from this country of Pascatir 



^ /.^., on the 26th September. 

2 The river Ural. Wie find this river already called by this name, 
under the form Daich (Aalx), in Menander (229) ; while Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus {De Admin. ^ 151) writes it Getch (Feijx). Pian de 
Carpine (743) transcribes the name Jaic^ and Friar Benedict (777) 

Jaiac (see also Bretschneider, Med. Geo^.^ 151). 

3 The Bashkirds. Pian de Carpine (708) speaks of" Bascart, which 
is Great Hungary," and Friar Benedict (776) of " the Bascarts, who 
are the ancient Ungari." Mohammedan authors called them Bash- 
guird. On their conquest by Batu, says d'Ohsson (ii, 620), quoting 
the Tarikh Djihankus hat ^ihey were a very considerable and Christian 
nation. They are of Finnish stock, and now speak a Turkish dialect ; 
but Yule {Ency. Brit.., xxi, 47) thinks it quite possible they formerly 
spoke a language akin to Magyar. Mussulman historians of that 
period identified the Bashkirds with the Hungarians. E. D. Butler 
{Ency. Brit., xii, 374) says: "The Magyar or native Hungarian 
language is of Asiatic origin, belonging to the northern or Ural-Altaic 
(Finnic Tartaric) division of the Turanian family, and forming along 
with the Ugro-Ostiakian and Vogul dialects the Ugric branch of that 
family" (conf., however, Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 164). 

* Constantine Porphyrogenitus {De Adtnin., 46) calls it " Black 
Bulgaria" (jiavprj Xeyovfievrj BovXyapia), and says the people used to be 
called Onogunduroi (OvoyowBovpoi), a name which connects them 
with the Huns. Theophanes {Chronograi)hia., i, 545) uses, however, 
the name Great Bulgaria {p,€yaXi] BovXyapia) (see supra, p. 107, note i;. 

K 



I30 JOURNEY OF 

that went forth the Huns, who were afterward the Hun- 
garians ; hence it is the same as Greater Bulgaria. Isidorus 
says^ that with their fleet horses they crossed the barriers 
which Alexander had built among the rocks of the Cau- 
casus to confine the savage tribes, and that as far as 
Egypt all the country paid them tribute. They ravaged 
all the world as far as France, so that they were a greater 
power than are now the Tartars. With them also came 
the Blacs (275), the Bulgars and the Wandals. For from 
that Greater Bulgaria come the Bulgars, who are beyond 
the Danube near Constantinople. And beside Pascatir 
are the Iliac, which is the same word as Blac^ but the 
Tartars do not know how to pronounce (the letter) B, and 
from them come those who are in the land of Assan.- 
They call both of them Iliac, the former and the latter. 
The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians and 
Sclavons is the same as that of the Wandals,^ and the 
hand of all of them was with the Huns, as now is that of 
the greater part of them with the Tartars, whom God has 
raised up out of the remote parts of the earth, a mighty 
people but a stupid race, according to what the Lord 
saith : " I will move them to jealousy (that is, those who 
do not keep his law) with those which are not a people ; 
I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation."* This 
is fulfilled to the letter as to all the nations who do not 
keep the law of the Christ. That which I have told of 



1 I have not found the passage referred to in Isidorus's writings ; 
but they are so bulky that it may easily have escaped me. 

2 A branch of the Volga Bulgars occupied the Moldo-Vallach 
country in about A.D. 485, but it was not until the first years of the 
sixth century that a portion of them passed the Danube under the 
leadership of Asparuk, and established themselves in the present 
Bulgaria, Friar William's " land of Assan" (see also p. 47, note 3). 

3 This observation as to the connection of these languages is per- 
fectly correct ; this is probably the earliest notice of the fact by any 
western writer. 

'* Deuteronomy, xxxii, 21 (conf. Romans, x, 19). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 131 

the land of Pascatir 1 know from the preaching friars who 
went there before the advent of the Tartars/ but since then 
(276) it has been subjugated by the neighbouring Saracen 
Bulgars, and some of the people have become Saracens. 
The rest may be learned from the chronicles, for it is a 
well established fact that those provinces from Constanti- 
nople (westward) and which were called Bulgaria, Blackia 
and Sclavonia were provinces of the Greeks, and that 
Hungary was Pannonia. 

So we rode through the country of the Cangle from the 
feast of the Holy Cross C^Sth September) to the feast of 
All Saints (ist November), and nearly every day we 
went, as well as I could estimate, about the distance from 
Paris to Orleans, and sometimes more, according to the 
supply of horses.2 For sometimes we changed horses two 
or three times in a day, while at others we went for two or 
three days without finding anyone, so we had to go slower. 
Out of XX or XXX horses we, as foreigners, always got the 
worst, for they invariably took their pick of horses before 
us. They always gave me a strong horse, on account of my 



^ This early mission of the Dominicans seems to have been entirely 
overlooked by the historians of the Order. The only reference I have 
found to it is in Albericus Trium Fontium {Ckronicon^ 564), where, 
under the date of 1237, he records that "Rumors having got abroad 
(in western Europe) that the Tartar nation wished to invade 
Comania and Hungary, four preaching friars travelled for an 
hundred days as far as Old Hungary, and they on their return stated 
that the Tartars had already invaded Old Hungary and reduced it to 
their rule." 

2 It probably appeared quite this distance to the portly Friar, but it 
is highly improbable that his party travelled sixty miles a day, which 
is about the distance from Paris to Orleans. When we take into con- 
sideration what he says a few lines farther on about tired horses, poor 
mounts, and riding he and Friar Bartholomew on one horse, I doubt 
very much if the average rate was much over twenty-five to thirty 
miles a day. It must be noted that our traveller does not mention the 
Sea of Aral. He either passed considerably to the north of it (and 
this supposition is the more likely since he says (279) that he had 
crossed the mountains beyond the Volga), or he took it for the Caspian. 
It was unknown to the ancients. 

K 2 



132 JOURNEY OF 

great weight;^ but I dared not inquire whether he rode 
easily or not, nor did I venture to complain if he proved 
hard, but I had to bear it all with equal good grace. 
Consequently we used to have to endure extreme hardships ; 
ofttimes the horses were tired out before we had reached 
the stage, and we had to beat and whip them, put our 
clothing on other pack horses, change our saddle horses for 
pack horses, and sometimes even the two of us ride one 
horse. 




(277) 

flMES out of number we were hungered and athirst, 
cold and wearied. They only gave us food in the 
evening ; in the morning we had something to drink 
or millet gruel,- while in the evening they gave us meat, a 
shoulder and ribs of mutton, and some pot liquor. When we 
had our fill of such meat broth, we felt greatly invigorated ; 
it seemed to me a most delicious drink and most nourishing. 
On Fridays 1 fasted without drinking anything till evening, 
when I was obliged, though it distressed me sorely, to eat 



^ Ponderosus valde. This is the only personal detail in the whole 
narrative. 

* Sorbere milium. Parched millet is still a favourite food ot many 
Mongol tribes ; it is either eaten dry and washed down with a gulp of 
tea, or else it is put in the tea and softened. Boiled millet with mutton 
is also often eaten. Ibn Batuta (ii, 364), speaking of the food of the 
Tartars of the Kipchak, says : *' They prepare a dish in that country 
with an ingredient found there like millet, and called addughy. They 
put water on the fire, and when it boils they put a little dughy (millet) 
in it. If they have meat, they chop it up and cook it with the grain. 
Then they serve some to each person in his cup : they pour a little 
curdled milk over it, and swallow it down." Pian de Carpine (640) 
says of the Mongols' food that in winter '* they cook millet in water, 
and make it so thin that they cannot eat it but have to drink it. And 
each one of them drinks a bowl or two, and eats nothing else the day 
long. In the evening they give to each a little meat, and they drink the 
broth from the meat." This was the ordinary diet of the Mongols in his 
day, and at the present day it is practically the same. Mongols, 
Tibetans, and Chinese when travelling do not eat in the morning : the 
one meal of the day is taken in the evening. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 33 

meat. Sometimes we had to eat half-cooked or nearly raw 
meat» not having fuel to cook it ; this happened when we 
reached camp after dark, and we could not see to pick up 
ox or horse dung. We rarely found any other fuel, save 
occasionally a few briars.^ In a few spots along the banks 
of some of the streams were woods, but such spots were rare. 
At first our guide showed profound contempt for us, and was 
disgusted at having to guide such poor folk ; but after 
awhile, when he began to know us better, he would take us 
to the yurts {curia) of rich Moal, where we had to pray for 
them, and if I had had a good interpreter, I had oppor- 
tunities for bringing about much good. This Chingis, the 
first Chan, had four sons,*^ whose descendants are very 
numerous ; and these all have big ordus, and they multiply 
daily and are scattered all over this vast sealike desert. 
Our guide took us (278) to many of these, and they would 
wonder greatly at our not receiving gold, silver, or costly 
clothing. They inquired also of the great pope, if he were , 
as old as they had heard, for they had heard that he was 
five hundred years old. They asked about our countries, 
if there were many sheep, cattle and horses there. As to 
the Ocean sea, they were quite unable to understand that it 
was endless, without bounds. 

The eve of All Saints (31st October) we left the road to 
the east,^ for the people had already moved a good deal to 



1 These briars were saksaul, with which Friar Benedict, who calls 
it {supra^ p. 35) absinciuvi^ says this country was covered. 

*-* Juchi, Chagatai, Ogodai, and Tului. The eldest died during his 
father's lifetime. 

3 It is, of course, impossible to determine with any great degree of 
exactitude the point where our traveller took a southerly course. 
Assuming, as I have done, that he did not make over thirty miles a 
day, he had probably not travelled, in the thirty-four days since 
passing the Ural river, a thousand statute miles. Allowing for the 
windings in the trail followed, he would seem to have changed his 
direction somewhere about E. long. 69^ Yule {Cathay^ ccxii) thinks 
he struck south at about long. 67° ; and F. M. Schmidt on his map — 
for in the body of his work he does not attempt to settle the question — 



134 JoUrnkV of* 

the south, and we made our way by some alps due south 
continually for viii days.^ In that desert I saw many 
asses called culam? and they greatly resemble mules ; our 
guide and his companion chased them a great deal, but 
without getting one, on account of their great fleetness. 
The seventh day we began to see to the south some very 
high mountains, and we entered a plain irrigated like 
a garden, and here we found cultivated land. On the 



places this point at about 70° 30'. It must not be thought that 
the direction then taken was due south. Our traveller throughout 
his narrative uses this term {recte). In the present case he probably 
travelled S.E. (see supra, p. 91, note i ; p. 92, note i). 

^ Direximus iter per quosdam aipes recte in meridiem, Peschel 
(p. 166) understands this passage to mean that the traveller travelled 
in the direction of {per) certain Alps ; and F. M. Schmidt (p. 192), 
misunderstanding, I take it, Yule's translation, accepts this interpre- 
tation. Yule {Cathay^ ccxi) translates as I have done. I have 
followed Yule's interpretation, first, because Friar William speaks of 
entering a plain after travelling seven days south, when he came in sight 
of a high range of mountains ; and second, because he uses in other 
passages the preposition per^ in the usual sense of " through " ; 
at p. 260 of the text he speaks of the mountain pasture lands (aipes) 
of the Kara-Kitayam "/^r quas transive" ; and on p. 390 he says, 
" tendebamus per altissima montana et per maximas nives in occi- 
dentetny Furthermore, if we accepted Peschel's and Schmidt's trans- 
lation, we should have to imagine that Rubruck travelled over a plain 
for seven days in the direction of these alps without perceiving " the 
very high mountains to the south of them" ; how this could be done 
I fail to see. Yule {Cathay^ ccxii) supposes that our traveller crossed 
the "Alps " of the Kara tau, S.E. of the town of Turkestan, and then 
entered the valley of the Talas. This seems much more likely to me 
than that he should, as indicated on Schmidt's map, have gone straight 
through the desert to the north and south of the river Chu, until near 
the present Aulie-ata, and then have turned eastward. Pian de 
Carpine's route — which ran probably not far from the right bank of 
the Syr-daria— joined that followed by Rubruck, I should think, not 
far from the latter's Kinchat. 

' See supra, p. 69. The Mongols call the wild ass kulan — often 
pronounced hulan. This animal is also found in Persia (where it is 
known as ghor khar), in parts of western India, Turkestan, and 
Tibet. Strabo (vii, 4,259) states that the Scythians of southern Russia 
used to hunt there ovaypoi ; and Herodotus (iv, 61) says that the 
Indians in Xerxes' army had wild ones harnessed to their chariots. 
This I think is untrue, for I do not believe that the wild ass has ever 
been domesticated. On the wild ass hunting by the Mongols in the 
thirteenth century, see d'Ohsson (i, 322). I have often chased them 
on horseback, but even when wounded they could get away from the 
best pony I have ever seen. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 35 

octave of All Saints (8th November) we entered a certain 
town of Saracens called Kinchat,^ and its captain came out 
of the town to meet our guide, bearing mead {cervisid) and 
cups. For it is their custom that in all towns subject to 
them, they come out to meet the messengers of Baatu and 
Mangu chan with food and drink. At that season of the year 
there was ice on the roads in those parts, and even earlier, 
from the date of the feast (279) of Saint Michel (29th 
September) we had had frost in the desert. I inquired 
the name of this province ; but as we had already passed 
into another territory, they were unable to ^tell me 
anything beyond the name of the town, which was a very 
small one. And there came a big river down from the 
mountains,^ which irrigated the whole country wherever 
they wanted to lead the water, and it flowed not into any 
sea, but was absorbed in the ground, forming many 
marshes. There (at Kinchat) I saw vines, and twice did 
I drink wine.^ 




tHE next day we came to another village nearer the 
mountains, and I inquired concerning these moun- 
tains, which I understood to be those of the Cau- 
casus, which confine at either extremity on the sea, from the 
west to the east, and which we had already crossed at the sea 



^ This town is mentioned under the name of Kendjek in the 
Mesalek al-absar (224) as one of the cities of the Talas valley (see 
note on next page ; and F. M. Schmidt, p. 193). 

2 The Talas river, which is finally lost in the sands of the Muyum 
Kum (Yule, Cathay^ ccxii ; Bretschneider, Med. Travel^ 34 ; F. M. 
Schmidt, p. 194). 

3 Grapes have been raised and wine made in this part of Turkestan 
for at least two thousand years. At Vernoye, for example, which is 
in the foot-hills of the Trans-Ili Ala tau, and at an altitude of 2,430 ft, 
grapes are successfully grown (Petermann, Mittheilungen^ xix, 402 
and F. M. Schmidt, p. 193). 



136 JOURNfiY OF 

previously mentioned into which the Etilia flows.^ I asked 
also concerning the town of Talas'^ in which were Teuton 
slaves of Buri, of whom Friar Andrew had spoken (to me),^ 
and concerning whom I had made much inquiry at the 
ordus of Sartach and Baatu. I was unable to learn any- 
thing concerning them, only the following circumstances 
of the death of their master Buri. Not finding his pasture 
lands good, one day while drunk he spoke to his men, 
saying : " Am I not of the race of Chingis chan as well as 
Baatu ? (for he was the nephew or brother of Baatu).* 



^ The mountains he had in view were those of the Ala tau, those 
nearest him being what is now designated as the Alexander range. 
Classical geographers, whom our traveller follows in this, thought the 
Caucacus traversed Asia from east to west, and conceived the Ural 
mountains to be a branch of this great range (conf. F. M. Schmidt, 
p. 195, and infra). 

2 The town of Talas appears to have been situated on the river of 
the same name. It is first mentioned by Menander (228), in his 
account of the mission of Zemarchus. Its position is not known, but 
it was on the highroad from eastern to western Turkestan. The 
Chinese pilgrim, Yuan-chuang (Julien, PHerins^ i, 14), visited it, and 
states that it was an important trading point. It is also referred to by 
Chinese travellers in the thirteenth century (Bretschneider, Med. 
Travel^ 34, 75, 114; and Med. Geog.^ iii). The Mesa/ek al-absar 
(224) says it was frequently called Jenghi-Talas : " From Samar- 
kand to Jenghi they count twenty days' march. Jenghi is composed 
of four towns, separated the one from the other by the distance of 
a parasang (about four miles). Each one of them has a particular 
name ; one is called Jenghi, the second Jenghi-bilik, the third 
Kendjek (Rubruck's Kinchat ?), and the fourth Talas." If this Talas 
is the same as the one referred to by our traveller — which seems 
hardly possible — he must, on leaving Kinchat, have taken an easterly 
direction with a little southing, which would have brought him nearer 
the mountains, as required by his narrative, but still Talas would have 
been a great deal nearer than was told him. See also F. M. Schmidt, 
pp. 195-200. He places Talas near the present Aulie-ata. Conf. also 
N. Elias, op. cit.y p. 79. 

^ There is no mention made of these Teuton slaves in the brief 
accounts which have reached us of Friar Andrew's mission ; but 
there is every reason to suppose that Friar William had often seen 
Andrew after his return from Mongolia to Syria (see supra, Intro- 
ductory notice). 

^ Buri was, according to d'Ohsson (ii, in), a grandson of Chagatai, 
and therefore a second cousin of Batu. Bretschneider, however 
{Med. fGeog., 169), says he was Chagatai's son, and Pian de Carpine 
(666) agrees with this, thus making him Batu's first cousin. 



FRlAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I37 

Why should I not go to the banks of the Etilia h'ke Baatu, 
to graze there?" Now these words were reported to 
Baatu, and he wrote to Buri's men, telling them to bring 
him their lord in chains, and this they did. Then Baatu 
asked if he (280) had spoken such words, and he confessed 
that he had, though he sought to excuse himself as being 
drunk, for they usually condone the offences of drunken 
men. But Baatu replied : " How dare you mention my 
name in your drunkenness !" and he had his head cut off.^ / 

As to those Teutons I was unable to learn anything con- 
cerning them all the way to Mangu chan's ordu, but in the 
village just referred to I gathered that Talas was beyond 
us in the direction of the mountains, vi days' travel. When 
I reached the ordti of Mangu chan I gathered that Mangu 
had transported these Teutons, with Baatu's permission, the 
distance of a month's travel to the east of Talas, to a 
certain town called Bolat, where they are digging for gold 
and manufacturing arms,^ so I could neither go nor come 



1 The origin of the quarrel between Batu and Buri is thus stated 
in the " Secret history of the Mongol dynasty " ( Yuan chao pi shih\ 
in Batu's report of the event to the Emperor Ogodai : " When the 
army returned (in 1243, ^^^^ ^^ conquest of eastern Europe), a 
banquet was arranged, at which all the princes were present. Being 
the eldest, I drank one or two cups of wine before the others. Buri 
and Guyuk were incensed, left the banquet and mounted their horses, 
at the same time reviling me. Buri said : * Batu is not superior to 
me ; why did he drink before I drank ? He is an old woman with a 
beard. By a single kick I could knock him down and crush him ! ' 
Guyuk said : * He is an old woman with bow and arrows. I shall 
order him to be thrashed with a stick ! ' Another proposed to fasten 
a wooden tail to my body. Such is the language that was used by the 
princes when, after the warwith the different nations, we had assembled 
to deliberate on important matters ; and we were obliged to break up 
without discussing the affairs. Such is what I have to report, O 
Emperor, my uncle " (Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 169). After Shira- 
mun's conspiracy (see infra, p. 164) Buri was in 1252 delivered to Batu 
by Mangu Khan and put to death, probably to avenge the old insult. 
The Mongols did not, when putting to death any of their princes, 
spill their blood : they were wrapped in felt and crushed to death, or 
else drowned (d'Ohsson, ii, 269, 458 ; iii, 243). 

2 The Mongols and Tartars have never been able to extract iron 
from the ore, except in a very primitive way, and must always have 



138 JOURNEY OF 

back their way. However, in going I passed quite near 
that town (of Bolat), perhaps three days from it, but I was 
unaware of it, nor could I have turned from my route if 
I had known it. 

From the village I have mentioned we went eastward, 
close to the mountains above referred to, and from that 
point we entered among the subjects of Mangu chan, who 
everywhere sang and clapped their hands before our guide, 
because he was an envoy of Baatu. For they show each 
other this mark of honor ; the subjects of Mangu receive in 
this fashion the envoys of Baatu, and those of Baatu 
the envoys of Mangu. The subjects of Baatu, however, 
are the stronger, so they do not observe the custom so 
carefully. A few days later we entered the alps in which 
the Caracatai used to live, and there we found a great river 
which we had to pass in a boat.^ After that we entered 



been largely dependent for the supply necessary for the manufacture 
of their arms and domestic utensils on what they could import or levy 
as tribute. Our traveller has referred to the tribute of iron they had 
exacted from the people of north-eastern Europe {supra, p. 47). We can 
easily imagine how useful these Germans must have been to them, 
smelting iron and manufacturing weapons. Bolat is the Pulad of 
Persian mediaeval writers, the Po-lo or Pu-la of Chinese travellers 
of the thirteenth century, the Phulat of King Heythum, who mentions 
it between Dinka-balekh (which Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 300, 
thinks may perhaps be traced in the modern Tsing-ho, a river and 
town east of Lake Sairam on the road between Urumtsi and Kuldja) 
and the Sut Kul (Lake Sairam) (Klaproth, Jour. Asiat., xii, 282). 
It is worthy of note, in connection with what we are told of the 
occupation at Bolat of these Germans, that the name Pulad is said 
to mean " steel " — I know not in what language (Klaproth, /i?r. ^w/. 
cit.). The Chinese traveller Ch'ang-te, who passed through this town, 
which he calls Po-lo, in 1253, says that wheat and rice were raised 
there, that the houses were built of clay, and the windows furnished 
with glass (Bretschneider, Med. Travel, p. 70). It would seem highly 
probable that this use of glass — which then, as now, was practically 
unknown in this part of the world — had been introduced by these 
same Germans. Quatrem^re {Not. et Extr., xiii, 229) makes the 
extraordinary mistake of identifying Rubruck's Bolat with Balkh 
(see also Bretschneider, Med. Geog., 12.\, 300). 

1 Leaving Kinchat our traveller followed in an easterly direction 
along the northern base of the Alexander range, then crossing the 
Chu, which at that season of the year was probably an insignificant 
stream — for he does not mention it — he took an E.N.E. direction 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCR. 139 

a (281) valley, where we saw a ruined camp, whose walls 
were nothing but mud, and the soil was cultivated there. 
And after that we found a goodly town, called Equius,^ 
in which were Saracens speaking Persian, though they 



through the hills which separate the Chu from the Hi, and in which 
he says the Kara-Khitai had their summer pasturages \alpes). 
Leaving these hills he came on thelli river, which he had to pass in a 
boat. Yule had (in Cathay^ ccxiii) identified the ** great river" of our 
traveller with the Chu, but in a later study on Rubruck {Ency. Brit.^ 
xxi, 47), he accepts the view that it was the Hi, as does F. M. Schmidt 
(202). From here our traveller probably followed the great military 
road up the broad valley, in which are the feeders of the south branch of 
the Kara-mal. This road, then as now, passed by the modern town of 
Kopal. Thence Friar William went along the foot-hills of the Ala tau, to 
the present Lepinsk, from which point, probably by a rather circuitous 
trail, he came to the head of the Ala kul. The Chinese traveller, 
Ch'ang-t^, who travelled through this country south of Lake Baikal 
little more than a year before Rubruck, speaks of it as being thickly 
inhabited : " The country was intersected in all directions by canals, 
which irrigated the fields. Numerous ancient walls and other ruins 
were seen. The people said that in former times the Ki-tan dwelt 
there." Four days after passing this place, he reached the Talas 
(river?) (Bretschneider, Kfed, Travel^ 74 ; see also F. M. Schmidt, 
203). 

^ The identification of Rubruck's "great river" with the Hi obliges 
us to reject Yule's identification of Equius with the Aspareh of 
Shah Rokh's mission, which was on the Chu, somewhere near the 
present Pishpek, or Tokmak {Cathay^ ccxiii). Likewise, we must 
consider as unlikely Howorth's identification of Equius with the 
Chinese mediaeval traveller Ch'ang-te's Yi-tu, which was in the 
neighbourhood of a river ^^ flowing eastward''^ called the Yi-yiin ; 
and which place Howorth thinks he finds in the modem It-kiyu 
or Sari Kurgan on the Chu (Howorth, History^ i, pt. I, 282). The 
Yi-tu of Ch'ang-te might be Rubruck's Equius, if we could identify 
his Yi-yiin river with, say, the Borotala mal, which flows eastward into 
the Ebi nor, and suppose that the Chinese traveller had followed 
along the southern slope of the Ala tau up the course of the 
Borotala, and then crossed over into the valley of the Kok su. This 
would have brought him exactly to the place where F. M. Schmidt 
places Equius on his map, a position which I think may be provision- 
ally accepted as at least possible. Schmidt (203) says that Equius 
was only one day's travel from Kailac, which all writers on the 
subject agree upon placing a little to the west of the modern Kopal. 
The text does not bear out Schmidt's statement, although I am fain 
to admit that our author has succeeded in conveying that idea to 
his readers. See, however, Yule {Ency. Brit., xxi, 47), where he 
thinks Schmidt misapprehends the text. Quatrem^re {Not. et Extr., 
xiii, 288, 234) identifies the Isigheul of the Mesalek al-absar with 
Ecjuius, but this does not help matters, for we do not know where 
Isigheul was. 



140 JOURNEY OF 

were a very long way off from Persia. The next day, 
having crossed these alps which project from the high 
mountains in the south, we entered a beautiful plain with 
high mountains to the right, and a sea or lake which is 
xxv^ days in circumference to the left. And all this plain 
is well watered by the streams which come down from 
the mountains, and all of which flow into this sea. In the 
summer time we came back along the north shore of this 
sea, and there likewise were great mountains. In this 
plain there used to be many towns, but most of them were 
destroyed, so that the Tartars might graze there, for there 
were most excellent pasturages in that country. We 
found there a big town called Cailac,^ where there was a 
market, and many traders frequented it. Here we rested 
xii days,^ waiting for a certain secretary of Baatu, who was 
to be associated with our guide in the matters to be settled 
at Mangu's ordu. This country used to be called Organum,* 
and the people used to have a language and letters of their 
own ; (282) but now it is all occupied by Turcomans.^ 

1 Hakliiyt's MS. reads "fifteen." 

- As pointed out by Yule {Cathay^ ccxii, 576), Rubruck's Cailac is 
the Kayalik of Persian mediaeval writers, and probably the Kaligh 
of Sadik Isfahan, the Haulak or Khaulak of Edrisi (d'Ohsson, 
ii, 246, iii, 516). Chinese writers of the Mongol period call it Hai- 
va-li {Med. Travel, 70). F. M. Schmidt (204), as well as all other 
writers on the subject, places Cailac a little to the west of the modem 
Kopal (N. Elias, op. cit., 288). 

3 Some of the MSS. read xv. Yule {Cathay, ccxiv) has suggested that 
these figures are possibly a clerical error for vii, as otherwise we are 
obliged to suppose that the traveller covered the distance from Kinchat 
to the head of the Ala kul in fourteen days. The distance between 
these two points is about five hundred miles ; this supposes an 
average progress of over thirty-five miles a day, which is — especially in 
a hilly country, as was part of this — an excess over what Friar William 
appears to have done in any other part of his journey. 

* As pointed out by Yule {Cathay, 522), the name of Organa, the 
widow of Kara Hulagu, grandson and successor of Chagatai, and regent 
of his ulus on his death, has been transferred to the country itself. 
She lived at Almalik, at or near the modern Kuldja (Bretschneider, 
Med. Travel, 62 ; and Med. Geog., 217). 

^ Benjamin of Tudela (36) speaks of the Thogarmans or Turks, 
and Haithon, Hist. Orient. (21), refers to the Turquians. Pian 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I4I 

Moreover, the Nestorians of those parts used to perform 
their services in that language, and write books in those 
letters,^ and perhaps it was by them that those people 
were called Organa on account, as was told me, of their 
having been excellent guitar players (or organiste)? 'Twas 
here I first saw idolaters, of whom you must know there 
are many sects in the east. 

The first are the lugurs, whose country confines on 
this said country of Organum, being situated among the 
mountains to the east of it ;^ and in all their towns is found 
a mixture of Nestorians and Saracens, and they are also 
scattered about towards Persia in the towns of the Saracens. 



de Carpine (701) mentions the Turcomans among the nations con- 
quered by the Mongols. D'Ohsson (i, 196) tells us that the name 
Turcman, or " resembling Turks," was given by the Persians to the 
Kankalis (Rubruck's Cangle\ when at the beginning of the thirteenth 
century they migrated to the Kharizm. Some authors, however, derive 
the name from the Turki //>, " to draw, to shoot," and otnan, 
"arrow" (Pears, Fall of Constantinople^ 15). William of Tyr (22, 24) 
says : " The people of the Turks, or of the Turcomanns (for they have 
the same origin) was at first a northern one. The Seldjuks took the 
name of Turks ; those who continued to lead a pastoral life, that of 
Turcomanns." 

^ On the introduction of writing among the Uigurs and Mongols 
by the Nestorians, see infra. 

2 Organiste in mediieval Latin, French and Greek {opyavapio^) 
means a musician, a player on any kind of instrument. 

3 The position here assigned to the country of the Uigurs is quite 
correct. In the thirteenth century they occupied Urumtsi, Turfan, 
Karakhodjo and adjacent localities, all situated S.E. of the Kuldja 
(Organum) country (Bretschneider, Med. Geog.^ 194). Chinese 
writers say the Uigurs (called by them at various epochs Yuan-ho^ 
Hui-hOy Hui-hu., and Hui-hui) were at one time known as Kao bin 
ch^i or " high- wheeled carts " and as Kao ch^e, '' high carts." They 
descended from the ancient Hsiung-nii, who became later on the 
Tu-kiieh (Turks) ( IVei s/tu, hk. 103 : Vang shu^ bk. 217a ; Ma Tuan- 
lin, bk. 344, s.v.^ Tieh-li; see also Bretschneider, Med. Geog.^ 
189-211, where the subject is fully treated from Chinese sources). 
Mohammedan historians agree with Chinese in putting the Uigurs 
with the Kankalis (Kao-ch'e of the Chinese), Kipchaks, Karluks, etc., 
among the Oguz Turks (d'Ohsson, i, 423, 429 et seq.; Howorth, 
History^ i, pt. i, 21, 694, and/./?.^.6"., 1898, 809-838). Vilh. Thomsen 
{op, cit., 147) suggests that the name Uigur is but a corruption of the 
Turkish Oguz ; if this can be accepted, it might be the original of 
the Chinese name Kao-ch'e. Pian de Carpine (650) writes the name 
Huiurs. 



l/ 



142 JOURNEY OF 

In the said city of Cailac they had three idol temples, two 
of which I entered to see their foolishness. In the first 
one I found a person who had a little cross in ink on his 
hand,^ whence I concluded he was a Christian, and to 
all that I asked him he replied that he was a Christian. 
So I asked him : " Why have you not here the Cross and 
the figure of Jesus Christ ? " And he replied : " It is not our 
custom." So I concluded that they were Christians, but 
had omitted this through some doctrinal error. I noticed 
there behind a chest which served in the place of altar 
(283) and on which they put lamps and ofiFerings, a winged 
image like Saint Michel, and other images like bishops 
holding their fingers as if blessing.^ That evening I could 



^ Theophylactus (225) tells us of some Turks, sent in the sixth 
century as prisoners to Constantinople, who bore the sign of the cross 
pricked in black dots on their foreheads. They said that, many years 
before, when a pestilence was ravaging their country, Christians 
(Nestorians) had suggested to them to do this, and that by this means 
the pestilence had been averted. The cross seen by our traveller may 
have been a hooked cross or swastika^ which I have sometimes seen 
tattooed on the hands of Mongols and Tibetans. Tattooing is not 
common among the people of central and northern Asia (omitting, 
of course, such tribes as the Chuckches and others of the far north- 
east). Pomponius Mela (622) says the Agathyrsi, a Scythian tribe 
living N. of the Sea of Azov (probably the same as the Khazars, see 
supruy p. 42, note i), tattooed their faces and hands, the amount of 
tattooing increasing with the social rank (conf. Herodotus, iii, 179). 
Chinese annals tell us that among the Kirghiz in the third or fourth 
century, the men had tattoo marks on their hands, and the women 
when they married had them made on the nape of their necks (Ma 
Tuan-lin, bk. 348). The Chinese pilgrim Yuan-chuang states that 
the people of Kashgar {Kieh-shd) were in the habit of compressing 
the heads of their new-born children between boards — a custom 
attributed also by classical authors to the Huns, Sidonius Apoll. 
Panegyr. Anthem., 245 et seg.) — and "decorated their bodies with 
bluish-green designs." Julien {Pderins, ii, 220) and Beal {Records, 
ii, 307) have mistranslated this passage, having read ching "eye" 
instead of chHng " blue." 

2 This idol temple was, I take it, a Buddhist one. I am, however, 
quite unable to say whether the Buddhist monks of Cailac professed 
the Tibetan or the Indian form of that religion, for Buddhism was first 
introduced there directly from India, or rather from Khotan, though 
Tibetan Buddhism may have spread there in the thirteenth century. 
The wingied figure would seem to be one of the yi-dafn or patron 
saints of the Lamaist's pantheon, many of whom are represented with 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I43 

find out nothing more, for the Saracens shun these 
(idolaters) so much that they will not even speak of them, 
and when I asked Saracens concerning the rites of these 
people, they were scandalised. The day following was 
the first of the month and the Easter of the Saracens,^ 
and I changed my host and was lodged near another 
idol temple, for the people entertain envoys each as he 
may and according to his ability. Going into this idol 
temple I found the priests of the idols there, for on the 
first of the month they throw open the temples and 
put on their sacerdotal vestments, offer (incense, hang 
up lamps and offer) the oblations of bread and fruit of 
the people.^ Now, in the first place, I will tell you of the 
rites common to all idolaters, and after that of those 
of the lugurs, who form as it were a sect distinct from 
the others. They all worship to the north, with joined 
hands, prostrate themselves to the ground with bended 
knees, placing their foreheads on their hands. As a result 
of this, the Nestorians in those parts never join their 
hands in praying, but pray with their hands held extended 
before the breast' 
They (the idolaters) place their temples east and west; 



wings. The images with hands held in the position of blessing are 
seen in all Buddhist temples, but they represent the Buddha or 
Bodhisattwas in the act of preaching. 

^ I suppose that the feast of Bairam is meant. Schiltberger (70) 
also refers to " the Infidels' Easter-day," and to " another Easter-day " 
which is the feast of Kurban Bairam. 

2 Buddhists have always kept the first and fifteenth of each month 
as special church feasts, on which the monks make general confession. 
The eighth and twenty-fifth are also religious feasts. These four days 
are called dus bzang^ " good days," by the Tibetans. (Rockhill, Land 
of the Lamas^ 100.) The first of the month is the most important, the 
ceremonies lasting during the whole day ; incense is burnt, and offer- 
ings made of bread, fruit, water, and lamps lit before all the images. 

^ At the present day, at all events, I am quite sure that there is no 
special orientation observed by Buddhists in praying, though— as 
wherever possible the temples have a southern exposure — they do 
usually face to the north. Nor do they clasp their hands, but hold 
them together with opened palms. 



144 JOURNEY OF 

on the north side they make an alcove projecting out like 
a choir, or sometimes, if the building is square, it is in the 
middle of the building. So they shut ofiF on the north side 
an (284) alcove in place of a choir, and there they put 
a coffer as long and as broad as a table,^ and after that 
coffer to the south they place the chief idol, and that 
which I saw at Caracarum was as large as we paint Saint 
Christopher.* And a Nestorian who had come from 
Cathay told me that in that country there is an ifdol so 
big that it can be seen from two days off.^ And they 
place other idols around about (the principal one), all most 
beautifully gilt. And on that coffer, which is like a table, 
they put lamps and offerings. Contrary to the custom 
of the Saracens, all the doors of the temples open to the 
south. They also have big bells like ours : 'tis for this 
reason, 1 think, that the eastern Christians do not have 



^ The text is rather confused, and there is a useless repetition, 
perhaps the result of hasty dictation. The meaning is, that the altar 
is either placed in front of the apsis of the temple, or in the centre of 
the building when it is square. The arrangement as indicated by 
Friar William applies perfectly to Lama temples and Chinese Buddhist 
{Jioshang) temples of the present day, in which there is a long table 
in front of the images on which lamps and offerings are placed. 

2 In the Christian legend Saint Christopher was a giant. Many of 
the early representations of him are more than life-size. 

^ Colossal statues of Buddhas are numerous in China, Mongolia 
and Tibet. Marco Polo (i, 221) speaks of *' the great stone statues 
ten paces in length" at Campichu (Kan-chou in N.W. Kan-su), and 
King Heythum mentions a very large clay image of Shakemonia 
(Shakyamuni) and an enormous one of il/<3:^r/ (Maitreya, the coming 
Buddha), also of clay, in a fine temple which he saw, or heard ©f, in 
China (Klaproth,y^wr«. Asiat.^ySS^ 289). The largest stone image I 
have seen is in a cave temple at Yung-k^n, about ten miles N.W. of 
Ta-t'ung Fu in Shan-hsi. P^re Gerbillon says the Emperor K'ang-hsi 
measured it himself and found it to be 57 chih high (61 ft.) (Duhalde, 
Description^ iv, 352). I have seen another colossal statue in a cave 
near Pin chou in N.W. Shan-hsi ; and there is another about forty-five 
miles S. of Ning-hsia Fu, near the left bank of the Yellow River 
(Rockhill, Land of the Lamas ^ 26 and Diary^^y). The great recum- 
bent figure of the " Sleeping Buddha" in the Wo Fo ssu, near Peking, 
is of clay. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I45 

any. The Ruthenians, however, have them, and so do 
the Greeks in Gazaria.^ 

All the priests (of the idolaters) shave their heads, and are 
dressed in saffron colour, and they observe chastity from 
the time they shave their heads, and they live in congre- 
gations of one or two hundred.^ On the days when they 
go into the temple, they place two benches, and they sit in the 
region of the choir but opposite the choir,^ with books in 
their hands, which they sometimes put down on these 
benches; and they keep their heads uncovered as long as they 
are in the temple, reading in silence and keeping silence. And 
when I went into one of their temples at (285) Caracarum, 
and found them thus seated, I tried every means of inducing 
them to talk, but was unable to do so. Wherever they 



^ Bells were, however, used among the Christians living with the 
Mongols. Trigault {Exped. Chrdt.^ i, 87), in the early part of the 
seventeenth century, mentions having seen one of these early 
Christian bells, which he says was in cast-iron (see also supra, p. u6, 
note 2). 

2 Saffron colour was that prescribed for all monks by Buddhist canon 
law ( Vinaya\ and is still worn by the southern Buddhists, and since 
the fifteenth century by a large part of the Lamas of Mongolia and 
Tibet. The absence of any reference to red garments, which in the 
thirteenth century were, I think, universally worn by all the Tibetan 
clergy, is interesting, as it would tend to show that the Buddhism 
professed at the time among the Mongols was not entirely of either 
Tibetan or Chinese origin, but retained probably many of the customs 
derived from the early Indian Buddhism of Central Asia. The use 
of high church hats, of the formula Om mani padme hum^ and other 
details noticed in subsequent pages, show, however, that Tibetan 
Buddhism had already begun to exercise a considerable influence in 
the country. On Buddhist monasteries in the Mongol times, see 
Palladius {op. cit, 29), and Yule {Marco Polo, i, 293). Rubruck makes 
reference in one passage to a priest wearing led clothes. He had 
come from Cathay, but was probably a Mongol or Tibetan. 

'^ Sedent e regione corus contra corum. At the present day, as 
apparently in Rubruck's time, the Lamas when holding church services 
sit in rows on either side of the temple from the altar to the doors. 
They have low benches or tables before them, on which they place 
the heavy, cumbrous volumes they read. They wear while in the 
temple, on occasions of ceremony, their high yellow hats {ser dja\ 
but on ordinary occasions they go through their devotions bare- 
headed. It is customary for all laymen to take off their hats in Lama 
temples. 



146 JOURNEY OF 

go they have in their hands a string of one or two hundred 
beads, like our rosaries, and they always repeat these 
words, on mani baccam^ which is, " God, thou knowest," as 
one of them interpreted it to me, and they expect as many 
rewards from God as they remember God in saying 
this.^ Around their temple they make a fine courtyard, 
well surrounded by a wall, and in the side of this facing 
the south, they make the main gate where they sit and 
talk. And over this gate they set up a long pole, which, 
if it be possible, rises above the whole city, and by this pole 
it may be known that this building is an idol temple.^ This 
practice is common to all idolaters. When I went into the 
idol temple I was speaking of, I found the priests seated in 
the outer gate, and when I saw them with their shaved 
faces they seemed to me to be Franks, but they had 
barbarian mitres on their heads.^ These lugur priests 
have the following dress : wherever they go they are always 
dressed in rather tight saffron-coloured tunics, over which 
is a girdle like the Franks, and they have a si6\Q (J>allium) 
over their left shoulder, passed round the chest and the 



^ The rosaries used by the Lamas and people of Mongolia and Tibet 
at the present day have 108 beads, corresponding to the " 108 doors 
of the Law." Their varieties are endless. (See Waddell, Jour. Asiat. 
Soc. Bengal, Ixv, 24, et seq, ; Rockhill, Ethnology, 736). This is the 
earliest reference I know of to the famous formula Om, mani padme 
Mm : " Cm, the jewel in the Lotus, hum." It appears, however, to have 
been in use as early as the tenth century, for it is found in a Chinese 
translation oi ih^Vyuha ratnaradja sjilra, made between A.D. 980 and 
looi (Sensho Fujii, Hansel, Zasshi, xiii, No. 2, etc. ; see also 
Rockhill, Land of the Lajnas, 326 et seq.). 

2 Such poles, often topped with a big black bundle to resemble a 
yak tail, and so identifying these poles with the Turkish tughs, an 
emblem of authority used in Asia from remote times, are always 
placed before Lama temples. Somewhat similar ones are placed before 
Chinese temples. 

2 The variety of hats and caps worn at the present day is very 
great. Waddell (^Buddhism in Tibet, 196) shows twenty styles of 
Lama hats and coats ; see also Cunningham, Ladak, 238, and Rockhill, 
Ethnology, 731. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I47 

back to the right side, like (286) the chasuble {casula) worn 
by a deacon in Lent^ 

The Tartars have adopted their (/.^., the Uigurs*) letters. 
They begin writing at the top, and run the line downward ; 
and in like manner they read it, and they make the lines 
to follow each other from left to right.^ They make great 
use of drawings and letters for their sorcery, so their 
temples are full of short sentences {brevibus) hung up 
there.^ The letters which Mangu chan sends us are in the 
Moal language, but in their script. 

They burn their dead according to the custom of 
the ancients, and put the ashes in the top of pyramids.* 

^ This dress is a purely Buddhist one : the pallium or shawl thrown 
round the body is worn as well in southern Buddhist countries as 
in northern. Friar William does not, I think, wish it to be understood, 
though he mixes them in his account somewhat, that the Uigur priests 
were identical with the Buddhists, or " idolaters " as he styles them ; 
though it would seem that not only did they dress like them, but that 
their temples had images in them similar to those of the Buddhists. 
The Friar's discussion with these Uigur priests about the soul could not 
have been held with Buddhists, who neither believe in a soul nor in a 
personal God. Apparently, as stated a little farther on by our traveller, 
the only article of Christian faith these Uigurs believed was that of one 
God. Pian de Carpi ne (650) says, " the Huiurs are Christians of the 
sect of the Nestorians." This may well be ; from Friar William's 
account of the tenets of this latter sect as professed among the 
Mongols, they were no more Christians than the Uigurs (see supra, 
page 17, note 4). 

* On the origin of the Mongol script, see infra, p. 150, note i. 

3 Cartis et caracteribus pro sortilegio. A considerable source of 

Erofit for Lamas and Chinese hoshaiig of the present day is stamping on 
its of paper or cotton magic formulas or prayers, usually surrounding 
a central figure of some God or guardian saint {ch^os-chyong). Over the 
houses and tents of the people, as well as around the temples, or 
attached along the high poles which Rubruck has mentioned in 
front of the temples, are innumerable bits of white cotton stamped with 
such sentences. The interior walls of the temples are also covered 
with most elaborately-finished charms or pictures, often beautifully 
illuminated. Like charms are worn on the person, tied to guns, 
or fastened around the necks of horses, and vast quantities of them 
are frequently scattered about for the benefit of whoever may find them 
(Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, 77, 98; Diary, 93, 1 53, and infra, p. 162). 
^ It is not quite clear whether the author refers to a custom of the 
Uigurs, or of both them and the Buddhists The Chinese hoshang2iXidi 
the southern Buddhists always bum their dead. Sung-yun, a Chinese 
pilgrim who passed through Khotan in A.D. 518, states that it was 

L 2 



148 ^ JOURNEY OF 

When then I had sat down beside these priests, after 
i/ having been in the temple and seen their many idols, great 
and small, I asked them what they believed concerning 
God. They answered : " We only believe that there is one 
God." Then I asked : " Do you believe he is a spirit, or 
something corporeal ? " " We believe that he is a spirit," 
they said. " Do you believe that he has never taken upon 
him human nature?" They said : " Never." " Then," said I, 
"if you believe that he is one and a spirit, why do you make 
him bodily images, and so many? Furthermore, if you do 
not believe that he became man, why do you make him in 
human shape rather than in that of some animal?" Then they 
replied : " We do not make these images to (of) God,^ but 
when some rich person among us dies, his son, or wife, or 
someone dear to him, has made an image of the deceased, 
and puts it here, and we revere it (287) in memory of him." 
Then I said : *' Then you only make these out of flattery 
for man." " Only," they said, "in remembrance." 

Then they asked me, as if in derision : " Where is 
God ? " To which I said : " Where is your soul ? " " In 
our body," they said. I replied : " Is it not everywhere 
in your body, and does it not direct the whole of it, 
and, nevertheless, is invisible? So God is everywhere, 
and governs all things, though invisible, for He is in- 
telligence and wisdom." Then, just as I wanted to 
continue reasoning with them, my interpreter got tired, 
and would no longer express my words, so he made 
me stop talking. 

The Moal or Tartars who are of this sect, though they 

customary there to burn the dead, and collecting the ashes build 
towers over them (Beal, Records^ i, Ixxxvii). Perhaps a similar custom 
was in vogue in Rubruck's time among the Uigurs. 

^ Non Jiguramus istas ytnaginas Deo, which may be " we do not 
make these images to God," but the context seems to require that we 
should read Z?^/, though all the MSS. have Deo. The images referred 
to must be the felt ones spoken of by Pian de Carpine {supra, p. 59, 
note i). and mentioned again in the next paragraph. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 149 

believe in one God, make nevertheless images of their 
dead in felt, and dress them in the richest stuffs, and 
put them in one or two carts, and no one dare touch 
these carts, which are under the care of their soothsayers, 
who are their priests, and of whom I shall tell you further 
on. These soothsayers are always before the ordu of 
Maogu and of other rich people, for the poor have none, 
but only those of the family of Chingis. And when they 
are on the march, these (soothsayers) precede them as the 
pillar of a cloud did the children of Israel, and they decide 
where to pitch the camp, and when they have set down 
their dwellings, all the ordu follows them. And when a 
feast day comes about, or the first of the month, they 
take their images and arrange them (288) in a circle in 
their house. Then the Moal come, enter the house, and 
bow before the images and do them reverence. And no 
stranger may enter that house. I tried to force my way 
into one hut, but was most rudely treated. 



fHOSE lugurs who live interspersed with the Chris- 
tians and Saracens, through frequent disputations, 
as I believe, have reached the point of having no 
belief but that in a single God. These lugurs used to inhabit 
the cities which first obeyed Chingis chan, who therefore gave 
his daughter to their king.^ And Caracarum is as it were 




* Friar William would seem to have been misinformed on this 
point, for I can find no record of Chingis having given one of his 
daughters in marriage to an Uigur prince. He did, however, give his 
daughter Chichegan as wife to Turalji, son of Kutuke Big;ni, chief 
of the Uduyut or Merkites (d'Ohsson, i, 419). The positions here 
assigned to the people of Prester John (the Keraits) and to the 
Uigurs (prior to their overthrow in the ninth century by the Kirghiz) 
is correct. The Merkites lived on the Selinga, just to the north of 
the Keraits, and the confusion is thus easily explained. Howorth 
{History^\^ pt. i, 698) does not understand this passage of the text as I 
have. It was not at the time when the Uigiirs were living near Kara- 
korum that the Mongols borrowed their script and applied it to their 



150 JOURNEY OF 

in their territory, and all the land of the king or the Prester 
John and of Unc his brother, was round about this country, 
though they occupied the pasture lands to the north, while 
the lugurs lived amidst the mountains to the south. So 
it happened that the Moal adopted their letters, and they 
are their best scribes, and nearly all the Nestorians know 
their letters.^ Beyond them to the east among those 
mountains are theTanguts, most valiant men, who captured 
Chingis in war; and he, peace being made, and once 
freed by them, subdued them.V' These people have very 



language, but at a much later date. There is, so far as I know, no 
information available as to the date of the introduction of Nestorianism 
among the Uigurs, and of the adaptation of the Syriac-estrangelo 
alphabet to their language ; but, prior to its spread among them, Mani- 
chaeism appears to have taken strong hold of them ; and that its tenets 
were still believed in the thirteenth century is clearly evidenced in the 
theological discussion which Friar William had with one of the tuim 
(possibly an Uigur, but at all events evidently professing their creed), 
and related in a subsequent chapter. Manichaeism was introduced 
among the Uigurs about a.d. 762, as we learn from the famous 
inscription of Kara Balgasun published by K2l6\oK {Atlas Altertkiimer 
der Mongolei^ xxxi-xxxv). See also Chavannes \Le Nestorianism , 
16, 45, 47) and Dev^ria {Musulmans et ManiMens Chinois^ 454)- 

1 In 1204, after the defeat of the Naiman by Chingis Khan, he caused 
the first minister of that kingdom, an Uigur called T'a-ta-tung-o, to 
teach the language of his native land to his sons, and to apply his 
script to the Mongol language (d'Ohsson, i, 89 ; T>xo\im, Joum. Asiat., 
ixe serie, vii, 488). Pian de Carpine (650) says that the Uigurs *'have 
adopted their {i.e., the Nestorians') alphabet, for they did not before 
that have any script ; but now they call it the script of the Mongals 
{litterain Mongalorum).^^ (See also Isaac Taylor, The Alphabet, i, 29 
et seq.) 

2 The kingdom of Tangut, or Hsi Hsia, as the Chinese called it, 
ruled over the present province of Kan-su and adjoining country, from 
A.D. 1004 to 1226, when it was finally destroyed by Chingis Khan 
(d'Ohsson, i, 370 et seq.). The founder of this dynasty was Li Te- 
ming of the To-pa clan of the Tdng-hsiang, a Tibetan people of 
N.E. Tibet. It is supposed by some writers that the name Tangut 
is derived from Tdng-hsiang. Chinese authorities tell us that the 
name was originally borne by a people living in the Altai, and that 
the word is Turkish (Howorth, J.R.A.S., xv, Pt. iv, 4 ; Rockhill, 
Land of the Lamas ^ 73; and/. 7?. ^.5., 1891, 6). At all events, the 
population of Tangut was a mixture of Tibetans, Turks, Uigurs, 
Tukuhuns, Chinese, etc. I cannot find any reference to the capture 
of Chingis by the Tangut. In his campaign of 1209- 12 10, he was 
forced to raise the siege of Ning-hsia on the Yellow River, by the 
Tanguts inundating the surrounding plain. This may be the event 
which gave rise to our author's story (d'Ohsson, i, 106). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IS I 

strong cattle, with very hairy tails like horses, and with 
bellies and backs covered with hair. They are lower 
on their legs than other oxen, but much stronger. They 
draw the big (289) dwellings of the Moal, and have 
slender, long, curved horns, so sharp that it is always 
necessary to cut off their points. The cows will not 
let themselves be milked unless sung to. They have also 
the temper of the bull, for if they see a man dressed in red 
they throw themselves on him to kill him.^ 

Beyond these are the Tebet,^ a people in the habit 
of eating their dead parents, so that for piety's sake they 
should not give their parents any other sepulchre than 
their bowels. They have given this practice up, how- 
ever, as they were held an abomination among all nations. 
They still, however, make handsome cups out of the heads 



^ Yaks are here referred to. The first western author to refer 
to them was Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian Topography 
(360), where he calls them agriobous. The average load carried by a yak 
is about 250 lbs. The wild yak bull is an enormous animal, and the 
people of Turkestan and North Tibet credit him with extraordinary 
strength. Mirza Haidar, in the Tarikhi Rashidi {^\6\ says of the wild 
yak or kutds : "This is a very wild and ferocious beast. In whatever 
manner it attacks one it proves fatal. Whether it strikes with its 
horns, or kicks or overthrows its victim. If it has no opportunity 
of doing any of these things, it tosses its enemy with its tongue 
twenty gaz into the air, and he is dead before reaching the ground. 
One male kutds is a load for twelve horses. One man cannot possibly 
raise a shoulder of the animal" (see also Marco Polo, i, 266, 268). 

'^ The natives call Tibet Bod^ pronounced Beu^ and Central or 
Upper Tibet was, and still is, called Stod Bod, pronounced Teu-Beu, 
whence the name Tibet, Tebet, Tobbat, and the other forms of the name. 
Pian de Carpine (658) calls Tibet Burithabet, which d'Avezac (565) 
thinks may be the Mongol Baron-Tala, by which name the Mongols 
designate Tibet. Rashideddin (d'Ohsson, i, 82) also uses the word 
Buri Tibet. I am inclined to think it is a hybrid word, composed 
of the native appellation Bod and of the word Tibet. Pian de Carpine 
[loc. sup. cit.) says of the people of Tibet : *' They are pagans. They 
have a most astonishing, or rather horrible, custom, for when anyone's 
father is about to give up the ghost, all the relatives meet together, 
and they eat him, as was told to me for certain. They have no hairs 
in their beard ; for they carry an iron (pincher) in their hand, as 
I saw myself, with which they always pluck out their beard, if some 
hair grows out in it : and they are very ill-shapen." Tibetans and 
Mongols still pluck out their beards as here described. 



152 JOURNKY OF 

of their parents, so that when drinking out of them they 
may have them in mind in the midst of their merry- 
making. This was told me by one who had seen it.^ 
These people have much gold in their country, so that 
when one lacks gold he digs till he finds it, and he only 
takes so much as he requires and puts the rest back in the 
ground ; for if he put it in a treasury or a coffer, he believes 
that God would take away from him that which is in the 
ground.^ I saw many misshapen individuals of this people. 
Of the Tanguts I have seen big men, but swarthy. The 
lugurs are of medium size, like us. Among the lugurs 
the Turkie Coman language has its source and root* 
After Tebet are Longa and Solanga,^ whose (290) envoys 



^ As shown in the preceding note, Pian de Carpine makes this 
same charge of cannibalism against the Tibetans ; and Marco Polo 
(i, 292) says of the people of Tibet (or Kashmir, for the text is not 
clear) that they ate all those who had been put to death by lawful 
authority. So far as I am aware, this charge is not made by any 
oriental writer against the Tibetans, though both Arab travellers 
to China in the ninth century and Armenian historians of the 
thirteenth century say the Chinese practised cannibalism. The 
Armenians designate China by the name Nankas^ which I take 
to be Chinese Nan kuo^ " southern country," the Manzi country 
of Marco Polo (Reinaud, Relatiens^ i, 23, 52, 68 ; Dulaurier, 486). 
Chinese writers say that the Liu-chiu islanders in the southern portion 
of the group ate their dead (Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 327). The Tibetans 
still make libation bowls out of human skulls, and some of the lamas 
use such bowls to eat out of. The ancient Turks and the Naiman 
made drinking bowls out of their enemies' skulls (see d'Ohsson, i, 82 ; 
Rockhill, £"/^«<7/^j?^, 727 ; Yule, Cathay^ clii, 151, and Marco Polo, 
i, 292 ; conf. Herodotus, iii, 46 ; and Strabo, xi, 7, 439, 11, 445. 

2 Gold is found in most of the streams and rivers of Tibet, from 
the sands of which the people wash it with pans or wooden cradles. 
The belief referred to by our author is still general in the country, 
and mining is not allowed, under the impression that if nuggets of 
gold are removed from the earth no more gold will be found in the 
river gravels : the nuggets being held to be the plants which produce 
the dust gathered in the rivers (Rockhill, Land of the Lamas, 209). 

3 The Tibetans, with their huge sheepskin gowns forming a big bag 
at the waist, in which half the wearer's goods are stored, their long 
matted locks, their bare legs with small calves, look misshapen 
enough. The dress this people wore in the thirteenth century, we 
learn from Chinese sources, was the same as they still have. 

* This is an interesting and perfectly accurate statement. 
^ Longa and Solanga are the Churches and vSuIangka of the 
mediaeval Mohammedan writers. The country of these two peoples 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 153 

I saw at court, and they had brought with them more than 
ten big carts, each of which was drawn by six oxen. They 
are little men and swarthy like Spaniards, and they wear 
tunics like the chasuble {supertunicale) of a deacon, except 
with narrower sleeves. On their heads they wear a mitre 
like a bishop's, except that in front it is slightly lower than 
behind, and it does not terminate in a point, but is square 
on top, and is of stiff black buckram, and so polished that 
it shines in the sun's rays like a mirror or a well-burnished 
helmet^ And at the temples are long strips of the same 
stuff, which are fastened to the mitre, and which stand out 
in the wind like two horns projecting from the temples. 
When the wind strikes it too violently, they fold them up 
across the mitre over the temples, where they remain like 
a hoop across the head ; and a right handsome ornament 
it is. And whenever the principal envoy came to court 



formed one of the twelve governments of the Mongol empire. The 
Churches are called Nu-chin by the Chinese, but they called them- 
selves, we are told, Lu-cMn or Lu-chih. This may be the original 
of our traveller's Longa, The name Solan^a is still borne by some 
of the Manchus, the Solons. The country of Longa and Solanga 
comprised probably a large part of northern and eastern Manchuria, 
and even northern Korea. According to mediaeval Mohammedan 
writers, Sulangka comprised the cultivated part of the Churches' 
country — that which contained towns and villages (d'Ohsson, ii, 478, 
638). Some writers have supposed that Longa and Solanga was one 
of those "double jumbles," as Yule calls them, like Gog-Magog, 
Chin-Machin, Koli-Ukoli, etc. Chinese annals also refer to the fact 
that the carts of the Nu-chen were drawn by oxen. Pian de Carpine 
{supra^ p. 20) speaks of the Solanges. 

^ The dress and head-dress of these envoys is very similar to 
that still worn by the Koreans. Chinese histories inform us 
that this Korean head-dress was worn by many of the nations 
neighbours of Korea (see Ma Tuan-lin, bks. 326, i, 327, 17). Our 
traveller says this cap was made of stamina rigidata per coloram 
nigram. As a matter of fact, it is made of horsehair and very fine 
strips of bamboo, dyed black, and very highly varnished. I may 
note here that, after the Mongol occupation of Korea, the official 
classes adopted for a while the Mongol dress and coiffiire {Korean 
Repository^ v, 179). The wings of these Korean caps do rot project 
from in front, but from behind ; those worn by the envoys seen 
by Friar William must have differed slightly from those of the 
Koreans. 



154 JOURNEY OF 

he carried a highly-polished tablet of ivory about a cubit 
long and half a palm wide. Every time he spoke to the 
chan or some great personage, he always looked at that 
tablet as if he found (291) there what he had to say, nor 
did he look to the right or the left, nor in the face of him 
with whom he was talking. Likewise, when coming into 
the presence of the Lord, and when leaving it, he never 
looked at anything but his tablet.^ 

Besides these people there is another, as I was assured, 
called Muc,2 who have towns, but who take no animals for 
themselves. There are, however, many herds and flocks 
in their country, but no one herds them ; when anyone 
wants some, he goes to a hill and calls, and all the animals 
hearing the call come around him, and let him treat them 
as if they were tame. If an ambassador or any foreigner 
come to that country, they put him in a house, and give 
him all he requires, until his business has been settled ; for 
should a foreigner go about the country, his odour would 



1 These tablets are called hu in Chinese, and were used in China 
and Korea ; in the latter country down to quite recent times. They 
were made of jade, ivory, bamboo, etc., according to the rank of the 
owner, and were about three feet long. The hu was originally used 
to make memoranda on of the business to be submitted by the bearer 
to the Emperor, or to write the answers to questions he had had 
submitted to them. Odoric also refers to " the tablets of white ivory 
which the emperor's barons held in their hands as they stood silent 
before him" (Yule, Cathay^ 141 ; Cordier, Odoric^ 378). 

2 One MS. has Nunc^ but this is no help in solving the question. 
F. M. Schmidt (218) thinks Mucvadiyh^ih^ Mouky^ or Mo ho, of north- 
east Asia. This is quite out of the question. Chinese histories tell 
us that the Nu-chen Tartars were called Mo-ho only during the Sui and 
T'ang periods (a.d. 589-905), but that in the tenth century the name 
Nu-Chih, or Nu-chen, was assumed as the national name (Ma Tuan- 
lin, bk. 327, 5). I am inclined to think that aboriginal populations of 
Ssu-ch'uan and Kan-su, often called Man, or Man-tzii, by the Chinese, 
are referred to, or perhaps even the Mosso of Yun-nan. These people 
lived in fortified villages on hill-tops, and then, as now, had the village 
flocks herded together in the adjacent valleys. I may note that 
it is still a custom among Tibetan and Mongol chiefs to keep traders 
who may visit them more or less in seclusion, so as to retain all the 
trading in their own hands. This, and not the danger of the cattle 
running away on account of the peculiar odour of the foreigners, may 
have originated the story told Friar William. 



FRlAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 155 

cause the animals to run away and they would become 
wild. 

There is also great Cathay, whose people were anciently, 
as I believe, called Seres. From among them come the 
best silk stuffs (which are called seric by that people), and 
the people get the name of Seres from one of their cities.^ 
I was given to understand that in that region there is 
a city with walls of silver and towers of gold. In that 
land are many provinces, the greater number of which 
do not yet obey the Moal, and between them and India 
there is a sea. These Cathayans are small men, who 



^ Friar William was the first western writer to identify Cathay with 
the classical country of the Seres. Yule {Cathay^ xliv, cxxv) thinks 
that Rubruck's seric is probably derived from the Mongal sirkek^ 
which in turn is the Chinese ssil^ silk ; and that the name Ser^ and 
Seres may have been formed by inverse analogy from the word sericum^ 
taken as an adjective. I can find no better authority for our traveller's 
statement that the name Seres is derived from that of a city than 
Isidorus (pp. cit^ 500), who says " Seres is a fortress of the Orient, 
from which the people of the Seres and the country take their name." 
He probably quoted from some earlier writer, but I have not been 
able to trace his remark (see also Yule, Cathay^ cxxv). Our author 
writes the name Cataya^ or Cathaia. Sempad, of Armenia, writes 
it Chatha; Will, of Nangis (360) and Pian de Carpine, Kitaia. This 
latter traveller's remarks (653) on Cathay supplement our author's so 
well that I will give them in full. " The Kitayans," he says, " are 
pagans, and have a special script ; and they have a New and Old 
Testament, it is said, and they have Lives of the Fathers, and hermits 
and houses made like churches, in which they pray at appointed 
times ; and it is said they have some saints. They worship one God, 
they honour the lord Jesus Christ, and believe in a life eternal, but 
do not baptize at all. They honour and revere our Scriptures, are 
fond of Christians, and do many acts of charity : they seem to be 
quite a kind-hearted and humane people. They have no beard, and 
in the shape of their face they resemble a good deal the Mongals, but 
they are not so broad in the face ; they have a tongue of their own ; 
no better artizans are to be found in the whole world, in all the works 
which men are wont to perform. Their country is very rich in corn, 
wine, gold, silver and silk, and in all those things on which human 
beings depend for subsistence." The Old Testament I take to be the 
" Five Classics " ( Wu Ching\ the New Testament the '* Four Books " 
{Ssii Shu), The Lives of the Fathers are probably the Confucian 
Analects and the works of Mencius ; and Confucius, Mencius and 
Lao-Tzu are in all likelihood the saints referred to. The one God 
they worship is either Vien^ " Heaven," or Vien Chu^ " the Lord 
of Heaven." The other points in his remarks are too well known 
to require comment. 



I $6 JOURNEY OF 

in speaking aspirate strongly through the nose, and in 
(292) common with all Orientals, have small openings 
for the eyes. They are most excellent artisans in all 
manners of crafts, and their doctors know full well the 
virtues of herbs, and diagnose very skilfully the pulse ; 
but they do not use diuretics, nor do they know anything 
about the urine : this I have seen myself^ There are 
a great many of them at Caracarum, and it is their 
custom for all sons to follow the same trade as their 
fathers. 'Tis for this reason that they pay such a great 
tribute ; for they give the Moal daily a thousand five 
hundred iascots or cosmos ; an iascot is a piece of silver 
weighing ten marks ; so this is XV thousand marks, 
exclusive of the silk tissues and the provisions which 
they receive from them, and the other servitudes which 
are put on them.^ 



1 Yule {Cathay^ cxxv) says Martin Martini, in his Atlds Sinensis^ 
alludes to a popular Chinese saying about the golden walls of Hsi-an 
Fu. " This passage," he adds, " is remarkable with reference to the 
remark of Ptolemy about the metropolis Thinae^ that there was no 
truth in the stories of its brazen walls." It was in all probability 
a poetical figure of the Chinese to give an idea of the magnificence 
of the great city, with its yellow-tiled palaces and walls. Mr. Walters 
tells me that he thinks something of the kind was also written about 
Lo-yang in the T'ang period. 

At the time Rubruck wrote, China south of the Yellow River was 
still independent. 

As regards the statement about the Chinese doctors not using 
diuretics {urinalibus non utuntur)^ our author is certainly wrong, 
as Chinese botanical works and their pharmacopeia contain frequent 
mention of diurectics, and the examination of the urine is an im- 
portant part of their diagnoses. Yule {Cathay^ cxxv) has misunder- 
stood this phrase ; he translates it : "but they don't examine the 
urine or know anything on the subject." See the interesting remarks 
on this subject by the Arab travellers to China in the ninth century 
(Reinaud, op, cit.,\^ 118). 

- I have no explanation to offer of the word iascot^ but agree with 
Yule {Cathay^ cxxv) in thinking that the cosmos is the sommo of Pego- 
lotti, which I may add is the saum of Ibn Batuta (ii, 412, 414). Pegolotti 
estimates the sommo at five gold florins (47 j. 6^/.), while Ibn Batuta 
says the sautn weighed five ounces. The value assigned to the iascot 
would be about ^5 5^., assuming, as I have done {supra, p. 90), that 
the mark was worth \os. 6ff. The difference in the values assigned 
to the sommo of Pegolotti, and to the cosmos of Rubruck, is not 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 157 

jLL these nations are in the mountains of the 
Caucasus,^ but on the north side of these mountains, 
and (they extend) as far as the eastern Ocean, and 
(this is) also to the south of that Sithia which the pastoral 
Moals inhabit, and whose tributaries they all are. And all 
of them are given to idolatry, and tell fables of a host of 
gods, and of deified human beings, and of the genealogy of 
the gods, as do our poets. 

Living mixed among them, though of alien race {tanquam 
advene), are Nestorians and Saracens ail the way to Cathay. 
In XV cities of Cathay there are Nestorians, and they have 
an episcopal see in a city called Segin,^ but for the rest they 



material, as neither were coins, but simply lumps of bullion, what are 
now known in China as yuan pao, and in Turkestan and Tibet as 
yambu. According to our author, the Chinese paid the Mongols 
a daily tribute of about ^7,875. or ;£2,876,375 a year. On p. 329, 
speaking of the Manse , he says they paid the Mongols an annual 
tribute, by which they bought peace from them, of two thousand 
tuman of iascots, or 200 millions of iascots ! These sums must be 
greatly in excess of what we have reason to believe the people of 
northern and southern China (for Rubruck's Manse must be the Sung 
empire, Marco Polo's Manze) paid the Mongols. Under the reign 
of Ogodai, China, subject to the Mongols, was assessed at about 
500,000 ounces of silver, 80,000 pieces of silk, and 400,000 sacks 
of grain. The population was reported at the same time to be 
1,100,000 families (d'Ohsson, i, 372 ; ii, 69). Asiatics, Chinese and 
Mongols especially, are never very particular about figures, and 
I fancy these were given our traveller off-hand by some person who 
had but a very vague notion of the subject. 

^ Inter monies Caucasi. Classical geographers thought the Caucasus 
extended from the Indian Ocean to Asia Minor, its branches covering 
all Asia. Jornandes (432) says ** it begins in the Indian Ocean. Its 
southern slope is arid and burnt by the sun, while ,its northern is 
swept by violent winds and snows. This mountain chain makes a 
bend towards Syria, and after that it trends northward and extends 
towards Scythia, where it makes long loops, advancing as far as the 
Rhipaean mountains." Isidorus, who is Rubruck's geographical guide, 
says {pp. cii.^ xvi, 521) : "The Mons Caucasus extends from India to 
the Taurus ; and on account of the diversity of peoples and languages 
it is called by different names in different places." 

^ Segin is usually supposed to be Hsi-an Fu, which was in the eighth 
and ninth centuries the centre of Nestorianism in China. This city in 
the thirteenth century did not bear the name of Hsi-an Fu, but was 
called by its oHer name, <"hang-an. However, in popular parlance it may 
have retained the other name. It is strange, however, that the two 



158 JOURNEY OF 

are purely idolaters. The priests of idols of the nations 
spoken of all wear wide saffron-coloured cowls. There are 
also among them, as I gathered, some hermits who live in 
forests and mountains (293) and who are wonderful by their 
lives and austerity.^ The Nestorians there know nothing. 
They say their offices, and have sacred books in Syrian, but 
they do not know the language, so they chant like those 
monks among us who do not know grammar,- and they 
are absolutely depraved. In the first place they are 
usurers and drunkards ; some even among them who 
live with the Tartars have several wives like them. When 
they enter church, they wash their lower parts like 
Saracens ;^ they eat meat on Friday, and have their 
feasts on that day in Saracen fashion. The bishop rarely 
visits these parts, hardly once in fifty years. When he 
does, they have all the male children, even those in the 
cradle, ordained priests, so nearly all the males among them 
are priests. Then they marry, which is clearly against 
the statutes of the fathers, and they are bigamists, for when 
the first wife dies these priests take another.* They are all 

famous Uigur Nestorians, Mar Jalababa and Rabban Cauma, when on 
their journey from Koshang in southern Shan-hsi to western Asia in 
about 1276, while they mention "the city of Tangut," or Ning-hsia 
on the Yellow River as an important Nestorian centre, do not once 
refer to Hsi-an Fu or Chang-an. Had Chang-an been at the time the 
Nestorian episcopal see, one would think that these pilgrims 
would have visited it, or at least referred to it (Chabot, Mar Jalababa 
21). Segin may represent the Chinese Hsi Ching (or King) " western 
capital," a name frequently applied to Hsi-an Fu. 

1 Hermits have always been numerous among the Chinese 
Buddhists, as well as in the countries where Lamaism is professed. 

2 Badger (ii, 146), speaking of the Nestorian clergy of the present 
day, says that the clerical Syriac in which their ancient rituals are 
written is so little understood, that many of the clergy have no certain 
knowledge of what they read in the churches. 

3 The Manichaeans also performed ablutions before each of the 
four daily prayers (Harnack, Ency. Brit.^ xv, 484;. 

* This practice arose under the patriarchat of Babaeus, who required 
that all patriarchs, bishops, presbyters and monks should marry. 
Later on, the marriage of patriarchs and bishops was forbidden 
(Assemani, ii, 403, 406, 409, 412 ; Badger, ii, 178, 180). At the present 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 59 

simoniacs, for they administer no sacrament gratis. They 
are solicitous for their wives and children, and are con- 
sequently more intent on the increase of their wealth 
than of the faith. And so those of them who educate 
some of the sons of the noble Moal, though they teach them 
the Gospel and the articles of the faith, through their evil lives 
and their cupidity estrange them from the Christian faith, 
for the lives that the Moal themselves and the Tuins^ or 
idolaters lead are more innocent than theirs. 




JN the feast of Saint Andrew (30th November) we left 
this city (of Cailac), and at about three leagues from 
it we found a village entirely of Nestorians. We 
entered their church, singing joyfully and at the tops of our 
voices : ^^SalvCy regina !" for it had been a long time since (294) 
we had seen a church. Proceeding thence three days we came 
to the head of that province, at the head of the said sea, 
which seemed to us as tempestuous as the ocean. And we 
saw a big island in it.^ My companion approached its shore 



time, all priests and deacons anjong the Nestorians may marry a 
second or third time, being widowers, " as they shall judge the same 
to serve better to godhness" (Badger, ii, 178). 

^ The word Tuin would seem to be an Uigur term. Quatrem^re 
(198) says, that in a certain Uigur-Chinese vocabulary of the Paris 
National Library (title and number not given), this word is explained 
by the Chinese shih^ " scholar" ; and that in a Persian-Chinese 
vocabulary it is rendered by sSng "a Buddhist priest." The term 
Tuin is used by King Heythum. He says of them that they shaved 
their heads and beards, wore yellow cloaks, married at twenty, and 
lived with their wives to the age of fifty. (K\sipYothy /ourn. A stat., 
xii, 289 ; see also d'Ohsson, ii, 264, Yule, Cathay ^ 241). In using 
the term, our traveller generally applies it to Buddhists, though here 
at least it would seem to include Uigur priests also. 

2 The Ala kul is the sea referred to ; the traveller took it to be the 
eastern extremity of Lake Balkash, which is hardly probable, though 
it is thought that these lakes were connected within the historical period. 
It may well be, however, that in the thirteenth century the Ala kul 
and the Sassyk kul to the north of it formed one lake. The island 



l6o JOURNEY OF 

and mpistened a cloth in it, and tasted the water, which 
was brackish, though drinkable. There opened a valley 
which ca:me from out high mountains in the south-east, and 
there amidst the mountains was visible another big sea, and 
a river came through that valley from that sea into the first 
one, and there blows nearly continuously such a wind 
through that valley, that persons cross it with, great 
danger, lest the wind should carry them into the sea. 
So we crossed this valley, following a northerly direction 
towards great mountains covered with deep snow, which then 
covered the ground.^ On the feast of Saint Nicholas (6th 
December) we began greatly accelerating our speed, for we 
already found no one, only those ianis, that is to say those 
men who are stationed a day apart to look after ambassa- 



referred to is the Ala tyube, or " island peak," a small extinct volcano 
in the Ala kul (Yule, Cathay^ ccxii ; Bretschneider, Med, Travel^ 71 ; 
F. M. Schmidt, 206 ; Sporer, 73, 81). See supra^ p. 16, Pian de 
Carpine's account of this part of the route. 

^ This lake to the south-east is the Ebi nor, about ninety-five 
versts from the Ala kul. A broad straight gorge separates the 
two lakes, but the stream which flows into the south end of the 
Ala kul does not come from the Ebi nor, but out of the Ala tau! 
F. M. Schmidt (207) and Yule {Ency, Brit., xxxi, 47), make out 
that our traveller went through this gorge (called Dolan kol on 
the Russian maps), and passed beside the Ebi nor, but the text does 
not bear out their statement, nor is it all comprehensible why he 
should have made this d^tour^ since,. after passing the Ala kul, he says 
he turned north and passed near Omyl. Yule {Cathay^ ccxiii) had 
rightly laid down the route followed ; 1 do not know why he changed 
his opinion. The violent wind which blows through the Dolan kol is 
the dbdox yube of the Kirghiz, the prevailing south-easterly wind of this 
region from autumn to spring ; it frequently carries such masses 
of snow and sand with it, that whole camps have been buried in it. 
This same phenomenon occurs in various other similarly-shaped 
localities in this region (Sporer, 84). Yuan-chuang noted the violence 
of the wind of this region (Julien, Pderins^ i, 11); while the Chinese 
traveller, Ch'ang-te, in 1253, refers to the same locality mentioned by 
Rubruck, and to the furious wind which comes out of the mountains 
blowing passers-by into the lake. He also speaks of the island in the 
Ala kul, which he calls Hai t'uhshan or "the iron hill of the lake" 
(Bretschneider, Med. Travel^ 713). The Chinese taoist traveller 
Ch'ang-ch'un, who passed through this region in 1224, also 
refers to a " wind hill " somewhere west of Uliassutai (Bretschneider, 
op. cit., 51). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. l6l 

dors, for in many places in the mountains^ the, road is 
narrow and the grazing bad, so that from dawn to night 
we would cover the distance of two iams, thus making 
of two days one, and we travelled more by night than by 
day. It was extremely cold, so we turned our sheepskins 
with the wool outside. 

On the second Sunday in Advent (13th December) in 
the evening, while we were passing through a certain place 
amidst most terrible rocks, our guide sent me word begging 
me to say (295) some prayers {bona verba) yhy which the devils 
could be put to flight, for in this gorge devils were wont 
suddenly to bear men off, and no one could tell what 
they might do. Sometimes they seized the horse, and left 
the rider ; sometimes they tore out the man's bowels and 
left the body on the horse, and many such things happened 
there frequently. So we chanted in a loud voice '^ Credo in 
ununt Deuml' when by the mercy of God the whole 
of our company passed through.- From that time they 



* These must be the Tarbagatai mountains. I presume that the 
traveller followed the river I mil up to its source, and then, crossing 
the Mus tau in a general easterly direction, came to the southern 
extremity of the Ulungur nor. From this point, the road he would 
naturally follow would be up the course of the river Ulungur, as F. M. 
Schmidt (208 and 210) makes him do. Yule {Cathay^ ccxiii) supposes 
that he crossed the mountains north of Tarbagatai, then followed the 
Kara Irtish, and having crossed the Altai to the east of this river, 
entered the valley of the Jabkan river. I cannot believe that the traveller 
can have taken such a roundabout and difficult road, especially 
in winter. While Schmidt makes him follow a loo southerly course, 
between the Ala kul and the upper Ulungur, Yule makes him take 
one entirely too far to the north. This part of the narrative is rather 
difficult to follow, for it is not at all clear why the traveller, after 
leaving the Ala kul, and before reaching the neighbourhood of 
Kuyuk's ordUy which we know to have been on the river I mil, should 
speak of the gorges of the mountains which he must only have 
passed later on. The natural explanation is that a paragraph of the 
narrative has been transposed by an early copyist. If we place after 
the present phrase the paragraph beginning " After that we entered 
the plain in which was the ordu of Keu chan," the narrative reads 
much more smoothly and intelligibly. 

2 The Chinese pilgrim, Yuan-chuang, when travelling by the Issy 
kul, noted the ferocity of the dragons in those parts, and says that 
travellers must not wear red gowns going through these mountains 

M 



l62 JOURNEV OF 

began asking me to write cards {cartas) for them, to carry 
on their heads,^ and I would say to them : " I will teach 
you a phrase to carry in your hearts, which will save your 
souls and your bodies for all eternity." But always when 
I wanted to teach them, my interpreter failed me. I used 
to write for them, however, the " Credo in Deum '* and the 
" Pater noster,'* saying : '* What is here written is what one 
must believe of God, and the prayer by which one asks of 
God whatever is needful for man ; so believe firmly that 
this writing is so, though you cannot understand it, and 
pray God to do for you what is written in this prayer, 
which He taught from His own mouth to His friends, and 
I hope that He will save you." I could do no more, for it 
was very dangerous, not to say impossible, to speak on 
questions of the faith through such an interpreter, for he 
did not know how. 

^ After that we entered the plain in which was the ordu of 
Keu chan, and which used to be the country of the 
Naiman,^ who were the real subjects of that Prester John. 



(Julien, Pdlerins^ i, ii). When Ch'ang-ch'un was travelling in the 
Ahai, in 1221, his followers rubbed the heads of their horses with 
blood to prevent them being charmed by the goblins in the mountains. 
This traveller mentions a place somewhere north of the Altai which 
had a very bad fame for goblins. One of his escort told him that 
a goblin had once pulled him by the hair; and the head of the 
escort narrated that once the Khan of the Naiman, when passing 
through this countrv, was charmed by a goblin (Bretschneider, Med. 
Travel^ 27, 29). Friar Odoric tells us that " the Minor Friars (in China) 
thought it a mere nothing to expel devils from the possessed, no more 
indeed than to drive a dog out of the house" (Yule, Cathay^ 155). 
Grenard (ii, 254) says the people of Chinese Turkestan still. believe in 
a gnome, Albasty^ who frightens travellers. 

1 Mongols and Tibetans fasten on their guns and spears charms 
written on bits of paper or cotton, to keep off the devils (see supra^ 
p. 147, note 3). 

2 Kuyak Khan lived on the I mil, which flows into the Ala kul. 
Pian de Carpine (648, 751) speaks of the new city of Omyl which 
the Emperor Ogodai had rebuilt, and where he was invited to drink. 
To the south of it was a great desert, in which savages {sylvestres 
homines) lived (d'Ohsson, i, 56, ii, 234 ; Bretschneider, Med Geo^,^ 
221, 305). The country supposed to have been at the time referred 
to occupied by the Naiman, was to the east of the I mil valley, and 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 163 

I did not at that time see this ordu, but on my way back. 
I will tell you, however, what befel his family, (296) his son 
and his wives. When Keu chan died, Baatu wanted 
Mangu to be chan. As to the death of thi3 Keu I could 
learn nothing definite. Friar Andrew says that he died 
from some medicine which was given him, and that it was 
supposed that Baatu had had this done. I, however, heard 
another story. He had called upon Baatu to come and do 
him homage, and Baatu had started in great state. He 
was in great fear, however, he and his men, so he sent 
ahead one of his brothers, Stican by name, and when he 
came to Keu, and had to present him the cup, a quarrel 
arose, and they killed each other. The widow of this 
Stican detained us a whole day, to go to her dwelling and 
bless it, that is, that we might pray for her. So this Keu 
being dead, Mangu was elected by the will of Baatu, and 
had already been elected when Friar Andrew was there.^ 
Keu had a brother called Siremon, who on the advice of 
the wife of Keu and her vassals, went in great state toward 
Mangu as if to do him homage. In truth, however, he 
intended to kill him, and to exterminate all his ordu. 
(297) And when he had already got to within a day or 
two of Mangu, he had to leave on the road one of his carts 
which brok« down ; and while the carter was fixing it, there 

included the Kara Irtish and the Ulungur valleys, though it may have 
comprised also that of the I mil, but of this I have no positive 
knowledge. 

1 The quarrel between Kuyuk and Batu has been referred to in a 
previous note {supra, p. 137, note i). None of the Mohammedan 
mediaeval writers confirm these stories of our traveller. Kuyuk 
suffered greatly with rheumatism, and his fondness for drink and dissi- 
pation seems to have been the primary causes of his premature death 
at the age of 43 (d'Ohsson, ii, 234). Kutan, a brother of Kuyuk, and 
Khoja Ogul, Kuyuk's son, are said to have been put to death by 
poison (d'Ohsson, ii, 232, 234). This Stican, Strican, Stichan, or 
Stichin — for the MSS. write his naine in all these ways — is the Syban 
of Pian de Carpine (667), the Shiban of Mohammedan writers 
(d'Ohsson, ii, 8). The presentation of the cup to the Emperor was a 
recognized mark of submission. Friar Andrew never saw Mangu, as 
we learn from Mangu himself. 

J4 2 



1 64 JOURNEY OF 

came along one of Mangu's men who helped him ; and he 
asked so much about their journey that the carter revealed 
to him what Siremon proposed doing. Then the other, 
leaving him as if he did not care about it, went to a herd of 
horses, and taking the strongest horse he could pick in it, 
rode day and night in great haste till he came to Mangu's 
ordu, and told him what he had heard. Then Mangu 
promptly called all his men, and caused to be made three 
circles of men-at-arms around his ordu, so that no one could 
come in. The rest he sent against this Siremon, and they 
captured him, for he did not suspect that his designs had 
become known, and led him with all his men to the ordu. 
When Mangu charged him with the crime, he at once 
confessed. Then he was put to death, he and the elder 
son of Keu chan, and with them three hundred of the 
greatest men among the Tartars. And they sent also 
for their ladies, that they all might be whipped with 
burning brands to make them Confess. And when they 
had confessed, they were put to death. A young son of 
Keu, too small to take part in or to know of the 
plot, was alone left alive, and to him reverted his father's 
ordu with all that belonged (298) thereto in men and 
animals.^ And on our way back we passed by it, but 



1 According to d'Ohsson (ii, 187), Shiramun (Pian de Carpine, 667, 
calls him Chirenen) was the eldest son of Guchu, third son of Ogodai, 
and had been chosen by his grandfather as his successor. Kuyuk was 
therefore his uncle. D'Ohsson (ii, 255, et seq.) tells the story of 
Siremon's conspiracy from Mohammedan sources in practically the 
same manner as our traveller. He adds that the man who discovered 
the plot, and informed Mangu, was a muleteer named Kischk. The 
Emperor rewarded him with a large sum of money and the title of 
iarkhan (d'Ohsson, ii, 255. 271). This title is an old Turkish one, 
which insured the holder great privileges. We find it already 
mentioned by Menander (227), where it is correctly written "lapxav. 
According to d'Ohss n, however, Siremon was not put to death at 
this time, but later on Mangu caused him to be drowned. The 
Empress, Ogul-Gaimish (Rubruck's Camus), the widow of Kuyuk, 
and apparently the instigator of the conspiracy, and also Siremon's 
mother, were drowned on pretext that they had tried to kill Mangu 
by witchcraft (see d'Ohsson, ii, 268). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 165 

my guides did not dare, either when going or when 
coming back, to turn off to it, for " the mistress of 
nations sat in sorrow, and there was no one to console 
her." 




^GAIN we ascended mountains, going always in a 
northerly direction.^ Finally, on the day of the 
Blessed Stephen (December 26th) we entered a 
plain vast as a sea, in which there was seen no hillock, and 
the following day, on the feast of St. John the Evangelist 
(December 27th), we arrived at the ordu of the great 
lord. When we were five days from it, an iam at whose 
(station) we were sleeping, wanted to send us by a round- 
about road, over which we should have had to plod for 
more than fifteen days. And this, as I learnt, so that 
we might pass by Onankerule, which is at it were their 
original home, and in which is the ordu of Chingis chan. 
Others, however, said that they had wanted to make the 
journey longer, so as to magnify their importance ; and 
they are in the habit of doing this to persons who come 
from countries not subject to them. And it was with 
great diflficulty that our guide obtained that we should 
travel the direct road, after they had detained us over this 
matter from dawn to the third hour.^ It was on this part^ 



1 Along some portions of his route while crossing the extremity 
of the Altai, after leaving the course of the upper Ulungur, the 
traveller may have followed for a short while a northerly direction, 
but there can be no doubt that the general direction in this part of the 
journey was very nearly due east (see F. M. Schmidt, 209). 

' I have no doubt that the reason given by our author for the 
attempt to make him follow a roundabout trail is the correct one. 
The Chinese have often done the same thing to envoys. They used 
to make them travel overland, from Canton to Peking, for no other 
purpose. I am reminded in this connection of the remark of 
Bernardino of Escalanta concerning the missions sent by the kings 
of Ava, Siam, etc., to Peking : that they always sent four or five 



1 66 JOURNEY OF 

of the journey that that secretary, the one we had waited 
for at Cailac, told me that in the letters that Baatu was 
sending to Mangu, it was stated that you asked for troops 
and aid from Sartach against the Saracens. At this I was 
(299) much astonished and also annoyed, for I knew the 
tenor of your letters, and that there was no such request 
in them, only that you advised him to be the friend of 
all Christians, to exalt the Cross, and to be the enemy 
of all the enemies of the Cross. (I feared) that as those 
who had interpreted (your letters) were Hermenians from 
Greater Hermenia — great haters of the Saracens — they had 
perhaps through hatred and for the discomfiture of the 
Saracens, gratuitously translated as had suited their fancy. 
I remained silent, saying nothing for or against this, for 
I feared to contradict Baatu's words lest I should be 
accused of trickery without reasonable cause. So we 
came on the day I have mentioned to the said ordu. To 
our guide was assigned a big dwelling, but to us there 
was given a very small hut in which we could barely store 
our things, make our beds, and a little fire. Many came 
to see our guide, and there was brought him rice wine 
in long narrow-necked flagons, and I could not discern any 
difference between it and the best Auxerre wine,^ save that 



envoys on each mission, because the Chinese u3ed to poison one 
or two of them in a banquet, " unto whom they make very sumptuous 
sepulchres, with epitaphs concerning what they were, and the cause 
of their coming, and by what prince they were sent. And this is for 
to continue the memory and greatness of the renown of his (the 
Emperor of China^s) realm." — Account of the Empire of China^ 57 
(Osborne's Collection, ii). 

1 Cervisia de risio^ or, as he calls it in another passage (305), 
terracina^ the Mongol tarassun^ ** wine," but here Chinese rice made 
wine, or shao hsing chiu^ is meant. Marco Polo (i, 427) says of it : 
"It is a liquor which they brew of rice with a quantity of excellent 
spice, in such fashion that it makes a better drink than any other 
kind of wine ; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to the 
eye. And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk sooner than 
any other wine." Odoric calls it bi^ni^ or bigum (Yule, Cathay^ 117 ; 
Cordier, Odoric^ 302, 317). There is another stronger liquor distilled 
from millet, and called j^^t^ chiu \ in Anglo-Chinese, samshu. Mongols 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 67 

it had not the perfume of wine. We were called and closely 
questioned as to the business which had brought us. I 
replied : *' We have heard that Sartach was a Christian : 
we came to him. The King of the French sent him sealed 
letters by us ; he sent us to his father, his father sent 
us here. He must have written the reason why." They /, JL 
asked if you» wanted to make peace with them. I replied : 
" He sent to Sartach letters as to a Christian, and if he 
had known that he was not (300) a Christian, he would 
never have sent him letters. As to making peacfe, I tell 
you that he never did you any harm. If he had done 
something for which you had to make war on him or his 
people, he would willingly, as a just man, make apology 
and ask for peace. If you without motive should want to 
wage war against him, or his people, we trust that God, 
who is just, would aid them." And they always wondered, 
repeating : " But why did you come, if you did not com&x/ 
to make peace?" For they are already so puffed up in 
their pride, that they believe that the whole world must 
want to make peace with them. Of a truth, if it were 
allowed me, I would, to the utmost of my power, preach 
throughout the world war against them. I did not, how- 
ever, wish to clearly explain the reason of my coming, 
lest I should say something contrary to what Baatu had 
stated ; and so I gave as the only reason for my coming 
there that he (Baatu) had sent me. 

The next day we were conducted to court, and I 
thought I could go barefooted, as in our own countries, 
so I left my shoes. Now, those who come to the court 
get off their horses about an arrow's flight from the 



call it araka^ arrak^ and arreki. Ma Tuan-lin (bk. 327) says that the 
Moho (the early Nu-ch^n Tartars) drank rice wine {ini chiu), but 
I fancy that they, like the Mongols, got it from the Chinese. 

The dwelling \domus) given his conductor, and the little hut {par- 
vulum tuguriunculum) assigned him and his party, were in both 
cases felt yurts. 



1 68 JOURNEY OF 

dwelling of the Chan, and there the horses and the 
servants keeping the horses remain. So when we had 
alighted there, and while our guide went to the dwelling 
of the Chan, there came an Hungarian servant, who 
recognised us — that is our Order ; and as they surrounded 
us and gazed at us as if we were monsters, especially 
because we were barefooted, and they asked us if we had 
no use for our feet, because they supposed that we would 
at once lose them,^ this Hungarian (301) gave them the 
reason, telling them of the rules of our Order. Then came 
the grand secretary ,2 who was a Nestorian Christian, and 
whose advice they nearly always follow, to look at us : and 
he examined us carefully, and called that Hungarian, of 
whom he made many inquiries. Then we were told to go 
back to our lodgings ; and, as we were going back, I saw 
before the east end of the ordu, the distance of two cross- 
bow shots from it, a dwelling with a little cross over it. 
Greatly pleased, and imagining there was something 
Christian there, I boldly went in, and found an altar 
right beautifully decked. For there was embroidered^ on 
a cloth of gold an image of the Saviour, of the Blessed 
Virgin, of John the Baptist and of two angels, and the 
lines of the body and of the garments were marked out 
with pearls, and there was a great silver cross with gems 
in the angles and the middle, and many other church 
ornaments, and an oil lamp having eight lights was 
burning before the altar ; and there was seated there 
an Hermenian monk, swarthy and lank, and he was 
dressed in a tunic of the roughest hair-cloth reaching 



I 



^ i2uiii supponebant quod statim admittcremus eos. As the text 
stands in the MSS., I can make nothing out of it. I have read 
edmitteremus {einitteremus). Previous translators have either omitted 
this phrase, or rendered it in the most fanciful manner. 

2 Bulgai by name (see infra). 

2 Brosdate sive bistrate. These embroidered images took the place 
among the Armenians and Greeks, of images, the use of which was 
forbidden them. 



FRIAR WILLtAM OF RURRUCK. 169 

halfway down to his shins, and over it he had a stole 
of black silk lined with vaire, and under his hair-cloth 
garment he wore an iron girdle. As soon as we entered, 
and even before saluting the monk, we sang on our knees : 
''Ave regina coelorum'' and he arose and prayed with us. 
Then, having saluted him, we sat down beside him, and he 
had a dish with some fire in it before him. We told him 
the cause of our coming, and he began encouraging us 
greatly, telling us to speak boldly, for we were the envoys 
of God, who is greater than any man. (302) After that he 
told us of his coming there, saying that he had preceded 
us by a month, and that he had been a hermit in the 
country of Jerusalem, and that God had appeared to him 
three times, enjoining on him to go to the Prince of the 
Tartars. But as he neglected going, God threatened him 
the third time, striking him down to the ground, and saying 
that he should die if he did not go ; and that he should 
say to Mangu chan that if he would become a Christian, all 
the world would come under his rule, and that the Franks 
and the great Pope would obey him ; and then he 
admonished me to speak in a like way. Then I answered : 
"Brother, I will willingly advise him to become a Christian ; 
for I have come to preach that to all men. I will promise 
him also that the French and the Pope will rejoice greatly, 
and will have him for a brother and a friend. But that 
they would become his slaves, and pay him tribute as these 
other nations, that will I never promise, for I should be 
speaking against my conviction." At this he remained 
silent. When we went to our lodgings, we found it cold^ 
and we had eaten nothing that day. We cooked a little 
meat, and a little millet with the broth of the meat to 
drink. Our guide and his companions had got drunk at 
the court, and had little care of us. There were then near 
them (us) envoys of Vastacius, but we did not know it 
At dawn (the next day) some men from the court made us 



A 



170 JOURNEY OF 

get up in all haste. 1 went with them bare-footed a little 
way to the dwelling of these envoys, and they asked them if 
they knew us. Then a Greek knight, recognizing our 
Order, (303) and also my companion, whom he had seen at 
the court of Vastacius with Friar Thomas our provincial, 
he and all the envoys bore great testimony of us. Then 
they asked if you were at peace or at war with Vastacius. 
"Neither at peace," I answered, "nor at war," and they 
enquired how that could be. "Because," I said, "their 
countries are remote from each other, and they have nothing 
to do with each other." Then the envoy of Vastacius said 
that there was peace, and this made me cautious, and I kept 
silence. 

That morning the tips of my toes were frozen, so that I 
could not thereafter go bare-footed. The cold in these 
regions is most intense, and from the time it begins freezing 
it never ceases till May ; even in the month of May there 
was frost every morning, though during the day the sun's 
rays melted it. But in winter it never thawed, but with every 
wind it continued to freeze. And if there were wind there 
in winter as with us, nothing could live ; but the atmos- 
phere is always calm till April, then the wind arises. And 
when we were there, the cold that came on with the wind 
about Easter killed an infinite number of animals. But 
little snow fell there during the winter, but about Easter, 
which was at the end of April, there fell so much that all 
the streets of Caracarum were full, and they had to carry it 
off in carts.^ They brought us from the ordu of the first 



1 Pian de Carpine (609) says of the climate of northern Mongolia : 
" The climate there is most unsettled ; in the middle of summer, when 
in other countries it is usually very hot, there is much thunder and 
lightning, by which many persons are killed. At the same season 
there falls there snow in great quantity. They have there also such 
violent tempests of extremely cold winds, that sometimes men can 
hardly keep in the saddle .... It never rains there in winter, but 
often in summer ; but so little, that ofttimes it barely moistens the 
dust and the roots of the grass. Hail falls there, often of great 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 171 

(wife)^ sheepskin gowns and breeches and shoes, which 
my companion and the dragoman took ; for my part I 
did not think I was in need of them, for it seemed to 
me that the fur gown I had brought with me from Baatu's 
sufficed me. 




(304) 

|N the Octave of the Innocents (3rd January, 1254) 
we were taken to court ; and there came certain 
Nestorian priests, whom I did not know to be 
Christians, and they asked me in what direction I prayed. 
I said " to the east." ^ And they asked that because we had 
shaved our beards, at the suggestion of our guide, so as to 
appear before the chan according to the fashion of our 
country. Twas for this that they took us for Tuins, that 
is idolaters. They also made us explain the Bible. Then 
they asked us what kind of reverence we wanted to make 
the chan, according to our fashion, or according to 
theirs. I replied to them : " We are priests given to the 
service of God. Noblemen in our country do not, for the 
glory of God, allow priests to bend the knee before them. 
Nevertheless, we want to humble ourselves to every man for 
the love of God. We come from afar : so in the first place 
then, if it please you, we will sing praises to God who has 
brought us here in safety from so far, and after that we 



size .... In summer there is suddenly excessive heat, followed 
immediately by great cold. In winter great quantities of snow fall 
in some parts, while in others little." Our author's memory served 
him badly as to the date of Easter in 1254 : — it fell on April 12th. 

^ Attulerunt nobis de curia primo pelliceas arietinas^ etc. It seems 
to me that primo is a clerical error, though all the MSS. give it, for 
either principi or pritne ; the latter would refer to the first wife of 
Mangu, whom Rubruck calls Cotata Caten (Kutuktai Khatun), and 
who seems to have greatly favoured the Christians. 

2 The Tuins (see supra^ p. 1 59) prayed facing north. The Nestorians 
faced also the east in praying (Badger, ii, 413). 



t72 JOURNEY OF 

will do as it shall please your lord, this only excepted, that 
nothing be required of us contrary to the worship and glory 
of God." Then they went into the house, and repeated 
what I had said. It pleased the lord, and so they placed 
us before the door of the dwelling, holding up the felt 
which hung before it ; and, as it was the Nativity, we b^an 
to sing : 

"-^ solis ortus cardine 
Et usque terre limitem 
Christum canamus principem 
Natum Maria virgine,^^ 

When we had sung this hymn, they searched our legs 
and breasts (305) and arms to see if we had knives upon 
us. They had the interpreter examined, and made him 
leave his belt and knife in the custody of a door-keeper. 
Then we entered, and there was a bench in the entry with 
cosmos, and near by it they made the interpreter stand. 
They made us, however, sit down on a bench near the 
ladies.^ The house was all covered inside with cloth of gold, 
and there was a fire of briars and wormwood roots — which 
grow here to great size^ — and of cattle dung, in a grate in 
the centre of the dwelling. He (Mangu) was seated on a 
couch, and was dressed in a skin spotted and glossy, like a 
seal's skin.^ He is a little man, of medium height, aged 
forty-five years, and a young wife sat beside him ; and a 
very ugly, full-grown girl called Cirina, with other children 
sat on a couch after them. This dwelling had belonged to 
a certain Christian lady, whom he had much loved, and 
of whom he had had this girl. Afterwards he had taken 



* That is to say, on the left of Mangu (see supra^ pp. 24, 58). 

■^ Saksaul is meant (conf. Benedict's narrative, supra, p. 35). 

3 Bovis marini. It was probably otter skin, though a variety of seal 
was found in lake Baikal, the Caspian, and possibly in other localities 
then subject to the Mongols. The Bulgars of the Volga carried on a 
large trade in sea otter skins. 



FRIAK WILLIAM. OF RUBRUCK. 173 

this young wife, but the girl was the mistress of all this 
ordu, which had been her mother*s.^ 

He had us asked what we wanted to drink, wine or 
terracinUy which is rice wine {cervisid), or caracosmoSy which 
is clarified mare's milk, (306) or bal, which is honey mead.^ 
For in winter they make use of these four kinds of 
drinks. I replied : " My lord, we are not men who seek 
to satisfy our fancies about drinks ; whatever pleases you 
will suit us." So he had us given of the rice drink, which 
was clear and flavoured like white wine, and of which I tasted 
a little out of respect for him, but for our misfortune our 
interpreter was standing by the butlers, who gave him so 
much to drink, that he was drunk in a short time. After 
this the chan had brought some falcons and other birds, 
which he took on his hand and looked at, and after a long 
while he bade us speak.^ Then we had to bend our knees. 
He had his interpreter, a certain Nestorian, who I did not 
know was a Christian, and we had our interpreter, such as 
he was, and already drunk. Then I said: "In the first 
place we render thanks and praise to God, who has brought 
us from so far to see Mangu Chan, to whom God has given 
so much power on earth. And we pray Christ, by whose 
will we all live and die, to grant him a happy and long life." 
For it is their desire, that one shall pray for their lives. 
Then I told him : " My lord, we have heard of Sartach that 
he was a Christian, and the Christians who heard it rejoiced 
greatly, and principally my lord the king of the French. 
So we came to him, and my lord the king sent him letters 
by us in which were words of peace, and among other 

^ Conf., however, p. 321 of text, which seems to disagree slightly 
with this statement. 

* See supra^ p. 67. Bal (or boat) may be the Turkish buzzah. 

^ This was done to show how unimportant were the envoys and 
their affairs. When the Chinese Emperor, Yung-lo, received in 1240 
the envoys of Shah Rokh at Peking, he kept them standing before him 
without paying any attention to them, while he tried a number of 
criminals (Yule, Cathay^ qq.\j). 



174 JOURNEY OF 

things he bore witness to him as to the kind of men we 
were, and he begged him to allow (307) us to remain in his 
country, for it is our office to teach men to live according 
to the law of God. He sent us, however, to his father 
Baatu, and Baatu sent us to you. You it is to whom God 
has given great power in the world. We pray then your 
mightiness to give us permission to remain in your 
dominion, to perform the service of God for you, for your 
wives and your children. We have neither gold, nor 
silver nor precious stones to present to you, but only our- 
selves to offer to you to serve God, and to pray to God for 
you. At all events give us leave to remain here till this 
cold has passed away, for my companion is so feeble 
that he cannot with safety to his life stand any more the 
fatigue of travelling on horse-back." 

My companion had told me of his infirm condition, and 
had adjured me to ask for permission to stay, for we 
supposed that we would have to go back to Baatu, unless 
by special grace he gave us permission to stay. Then he 
began his reply :^ " As the sun sends its rays everywhere, 
likewise my sway and that of Baatu reach everywhere, so 
we do not want your gold or silver." So far I understood 
my interpreter, but after that I could not understand the 
whole of any one sentence : 'twas by this that I found out 



^ Pian de Carpine (765) says : " It is the custom of the Emperor 
of the Tartars never to address directly a foreigner, no matter how 
great he may be, but to listen and answer through the medium of 
someone." This custom is still adhered to in audiences granted 
to foreigners at the Court of China. Rubruck does not refer to it ; 
he only states that he was not at liberty to speak on a subject after 
the Emperor had once spoken what he had to say about it The 
bombastic remark of the Emperor is in pure oriental style. Menander 
states that Turkhan Khan of the Turks told Valentius, the envoy 
of Tiberius Constantinus, that his realm extended from the rising sun 
to the farthest point it reached in the west. Theophylactus {Historia^ 
282) says the Khan of the Avars began his letter to the Emperor 
Maurice by styling himself '* Mighty ruler of the seven nations, lord 
of the seven climes of the world." 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 175 

he was drunk, and Mangu himself appeared to me tipsy.^ 
His speech, it seemed to me, however, showed that he 
was not pleased that we had come to Sartach in the first 
place rather than to him. Then I, seeing that I was 
without interpreter, said nothing, save to beg him not 
to be displeased with what I had said of gold and silver, 
for (308) I had not said that he needed or wanted such 
things, but only that we would gladly honour him with 
things temporal as well as spiritual. Then he made us 
arise and sit down again, and after awliile we saluted him 
and went out, and with us his secretaries and his interpreter, 
who was bringing up one of his daughters. And they 
began to question us greatly about the kingdom of France, 
whether there were many sheep and cattle and horses 
there, and whether they had not better go there at once 
and take it all. And I had to use all my strength to 
conceal my indignation and anger ; but I answered : 
*• There are many good things there, which you would 
see if it befel you to go there." 

Then they appointed someone to take care of us, and 
we went to the monk. And as we were coming out of 
there to go to our lodgings, the interpreter I have men- 
tioned came to me and said : " Mangu Chan takes com- 
passion on you and allows you to stay here for the space 
of two months : then the great cold will be over. And he 
informs you that ten days hence there is a goodly city 
called Caracarum. If you wish to go there, he will have 
you given all you may require ; if, however, you wish 
to remain here, you may do so, and you shall have what 



1 Mangu, like Chingis, Ogodai, Kuyuk, Tului, Chagatai, and 
most of the imperial family, was a hard drinker. The empresses 
followed in their lead ; Rubruck mentions seeing Kutuktai (Cotata) 
drunk. The Emperor Baber's fondness for majuin and arak is well 
known. Chingis Khan spoke very strongly against drunkenness in 
his Ordonnances, but he was not able to live up to his rules of 
conduct. 



/ 



1/6 JOURNEY OF 

you need. It will, however, be fatiguing for you to ride 
with the court/' I answered : " May the Lord keep 
Mangu Chan and give him a happy and long life ! We 
have found this monk here, whom we believe to be a holy 
man and come here by the will of God. So we would 
willingly remain here with him, for we are monks, and we 
would say our prayers with him for the life of the chan." 
Then he left us without a word. And we went to a big 
house, which we found cold and without a supply of fuel, 
and we were still without (309) food, and it was night. 
Then he to whom wc had been entrusted gave tis fuel and 
a little food. 

Our guide being about to return to Baatu, begged of us 
a carpet or rug which we had left by his order in Baatu's 
ordu. We gave it him, and he left us in the most friendly 
manner, asking our hand,^ and saying that it was his fault 
if he had let us suffer from hunger or thirst on the journey. 
We pardoned him, and in like manner we asked pardon of 
him and all his suite if we had shown them an evil example 
in anything. 




^CERTAIN woman from Metz in Lorraine, Paquette 
by name, and who had been made a prisoner in 
Hungary, found us out, and she gave us the best 
food she could. She belonged to the ordu of the Christian 
lady of whom I have spoken,^ and she told me of the 
unheard-of misery she had endured before coming to the 
ordu? But now she was fairly well off. She had a young 

^ Postulans dextram nostrum. Hand-shaking is not a Mongol or 
Chinese custom ; the friar's guide had either seen him shake hands, or 
had noticed the Nestorians do it (see p. 315 of text, where this custom 
of theirs is noted). 

2 A wife of Mangu, and the mother of the ugly girl Cirina, of whom 
he has already spoken. 

^ The terrible condition of the captives among the Mongols is thus 
described by Pian de Carpine (71 1-7 13). "In the country of the 



FRIAK WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 177 

Ruthenian husband, of whom she had had three right fine- 
looking boys, and he knew how to make houses,^ a very good 
trade among them. Furthermore, she told us that there 
was in Caracarum a certain master goldsmith, William by 
name, a native of Paris : and his family name was Buchier, 
aAd the name of his father was Laurent Buchier.^ 

She believed that he had still a brother living on the 
Grand Pont, called Roger Buchier. She also told me that 
he supported a young man whom he considered as his 
son, and who was a most excellent interpreter. But as 



Saracens, and in those of other nations who live as it were in the 
midst, the lords take all the best artisans, and use them for all their 
works ; the other artisans pay them of their labour as tribute. They 
(the captives) store all their crops in the granaries of their lords ; they 
allow them, however, seed corn and enough for their food ; to the 
others they give to each one daily a small weight (of meal), and nothing 
else but a little portion of meat three times a week. And this they 
only do for those artisans who live in towns. Whenever it pleases 
the masters, their wives, or their sons, they take all the young 
(captives), and make them go after them with all their body servants, 
who are counted among the Mongols or rather among the captives : 
for though they are reckoned with them, they are not held in respect 
as are Tartars, but are looked upon as slaves, and are exposed to 
all dangers just as other captives ; for they are placed in the foremost 
rank in battles, and if it be necessary to cross a swamp or a dangerous 
piece of water, they must first try the ford. Furthermore, they must 
do everything there is to be done. And if they give offence in any- 
thing, or if they do not obey orders, they beat them like donkeys. To 
be brief, they have little to eat, little to drink, and are miserably clad, 
unless they are able to make some money, as may goldsmiths and 
other good artisans. But some have such bad masters that they give 
them nothing, and they have no time to do anything for themselves 
on account of the amount of work of their masters, unless they take 
some of the time when they might be resting or sleeping. And this 
only can they do if they are allowed to have wives or their own tent ; 
but those who are kept in the tent as slaves are full of every kind of 
misery. I have seen them going about in all weathers with leather 
breeches, and all the rest of the body bare, under the hottest sun, and 
enduring the severest cold in winter. I have seen some who have 
lost their toes and fingers from the great cold, and I heard of others 
who had died from the intense cold, or had become bereft of the use of 
all their limbs." See also on foreign captives among the Mongols, 
d'Ohsson (ii, 133) ; and Heyd (pp. cit.^ ii, 71). 

^ Facere domos. Probably tent-frames are meant, for all the houses 
at Karakorum were made by the Chinese. 

*-* For some details concerning this kind friend of Friar William's 
see infra. 

N 



T78 JOURNEY OF 

Mangu Chan had given this said master three hundred 
lascot, that is three thousand marks, and L workmen to do 
a certain work, she (310) feared he would not be able to 
send his son to me. She had heard people in the ordu 
saying : " The men who have come from your country are 
good men, and Mangu Chan would be pleased to speak 
with them, but their interpreter is worth nothing." 'Twas 
for this that she was solicitous about an interpreter. So I 
wrote to this master of my coming, asking him if he could 
send me his son ; and he replied that in that month he 
could not, but the following he would have finished his 
task and then he would send him to me. 

We were stopping then with the other envoys ; for they 
do differently as regards envoys at the court of Baatu and 
the court of Mangu. At Baatu*s court there is an lam 
on the west side who receives all those who come from the 
west ; and it is arranged in like fashion for the other 
quarters of the world. But at the court of Mangu all are 
under one lam, and may visit and see each other. At the 
court of Baatu they do not know each other, and one 
knows not whether another is an envoy, for they know 
not each other's lodgings, and only see each other at 
court. And when one is summoned, another perhaps is 
not : for they only go to court when summoned. 

We found there a certain Christian from Damascus, who 
said he had come for the Soldan of Mont Real and of 
Crac, who wished to become the tributary and friend of 
the Tartars. Furthermore, the year before I arrived there, a 
certain clerk had come there from Aeon, who called himself 
Raymond, but whose name was in truth Theodolus. He 
had started out from Cyprus with Friar Andrew, and had 
gone with him as far as Persia, and he brought certain 
instruments from Ammoric^ there in Persia, and he re- 

1 Quedam organa ab Ammorico, Organa in Latin and Greek 
{opyava) means both drums and wind instruments ; but as in another 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 79 

mained there after Friar Andrew. When Friar Andrew 
had gone back, he went on (311) with his instruments and 
came to Mangu Chan, who asked him why he had come ; 
and he said that he was with a certain holy bishop to 
whom God had sent letters from heaven written in letters 
of gold, and had ordered to send them to the lord of the 
Tartars, for he would become the lord of the whole worldi 
and he must persuade men to make peace with him. Then 
Mangu said to him : " If thou hast brought these letters 
which have come from heaven and letters of your lord, 
then thou art welcome." He replied that he had been 
bringing letters, but that they and his other things being 
on an unbroken pack-horse, it had run away through 
forests and over hills, and he had lost everything. Now it is a 
truth that such accidents frequently do occur, so one must 
be very careful to hold one's horse when obliged to get 
off it. 

Then Mangu asked the name of the bishop. He said 
that he was called Oto.^ And he went on to tell him 
of Damascus and of master William, who was clerk of 
the lord legate. Then the Chan asked him in whose 
kingdom he dwelt. And he answered that he was under 
a certain king of the Franks, who was called King Moles.^ 

passage (362) Friar William says ^''sonant timpana et or^ana^^ 
I take it that he uses it in the sense of horns or wind instru- 
ments. Pian de Carpine (662) has ^' percutiebant in organis et 
tympanis et aliis instrumentis.^'' Ab Ammorico is more embarrassing. 
Bergeron translates these words by "certains instruments qu'ils 
appellent d'Amoricus." It is just possible that Ammorico is a clerical 
error for Hermenia (Armenia). Joinville (160) speaks of four musicians 
who came to St. Louis' camp with the Prince of Antioch, " et avoient 
troiz cors, dont les voiz leur venoient parmi les visages. Quant il 
encommengoient k corner, vous deissiez que ce sont les voiz des cynes 
qui se partent de I'estanc ; et fesoient les plus douces melodies et les 
plus gracieuses, que c'estoit mervieilles de I'oyr." 

1 Odon or Eudes de Chateau- Roux, or Chateau-Raoul, in Berri, 
Cardinal-Bishop of Tusculum, had preached the crusade in France, 
and had accompanied St. Louis to the Holy Land as Papal Legate 
(Michaud, iii, 85). 

2 Or Meles^ according to some MSS. I am unable to offer any explana- 
tion of this word : the whole phrase is obscure, nor do I quite see its 

N 2 



l8o JOURNEY OF 

For he had before that heard of what happened at Mensura, 
and he wanted to say that he was one of your subjects. 
Furthermore, he said to the chan that the Saracens were 
between the Franks and him blocking the way : that if the 
road were open they would send envoys and would gladly 
make a peace with him. Then Mangu Chan asked if he 
•would (312) take envoys to that king and that bishop. He 
replied that he would, and also to the Pope. Then Mangu 
had made a very strong bow that two men could hardly 
string, and two arrows with silver heads full of holes, 
which whistled like a pipe when they were shot.^ And he 
told the Moal whom he was to send with this Theodolus : 
" Go to the king of the Franks, to whom this man shall 
take you, and offer him these from me. And if he will 
have peace with us, and we conquer the land of the 
Saracens as far as his country, we will leave him all 
the rest of the earth to the west. If not, bring back the 
bow and the arrows to us, and tell him that with such bows 
we shoot far and hit hard." 

Then he made this Theodulus leave his presence, and 
his interpreter was the son of master William, and he 
heard (the chan) saying to the Moal : *' Go with this man ; 
examine well the roads, the country, the towns, the men 
and their arms." Then this young man upbraided 
Theodulus, saying that he did wrong to take envoys 
of the Tartars with him, who only went to spy. Then 
he answered that he would put them to sea, so that they 



connection with the one which follows. Did Theodulus want to 
invent a name for St. Louis, and so coined the word Moles from 
Mensura f On the battle of Mansurah in 1 249, and St. Louis' captivity, 
see Joinville (60 etseq.) ; he writes the name la Massoure, and Sarrasin, 
la Massore (see also Michaud, iii, 142, 469). 

1 Already in the sixth century, A.D., the Turks used "sounding 
arrows " {ining ii). Chou shu, bk. 50, 3. Such arrow-heads are still 
used by the Mongols and Manchus, and are called in Chinese hsiang 
chieji^ *' signal arrows.'' The name sufficiently explains the use to 
which they are put (see also d'Ohsson, i, 6j, note). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. l8l 

would not be able to know whence they came nor how 
they had come back. 

Mangu also gave the Moal his bull, which is like a plate 
of gold a palm broad and a half cubit long, and on it 
IS written his order. He who bears it can command what 
he pleases, and it shall be done without delay.^ 

So when this Theodulus had come as far as Vastacius, 
and was wishing to pass on (3 1 3) to the Pope, to deceive the 
Pope as he had deceived Mangu Chan, Vastacius asked him 
if he had letters of the Pope, since he was an ambassador 
and had to lead envoys of the Tartars. And when he was 
unable to show any letters, he seized him and took away 
from him all that he had got together, and threw him into 
prison. As to the Moal, he fell ill and died there. Vas- 
tacius, however, sent back to Mangu Chan by the attendants 
of the Moal the bull of gold, and I passed them on the 
road at Arseron (Erzerum) on the border of Turkuie, and 
they told me what had befallen this Theodulus. Such 
adventurers wandering through the world, the Moal put to 
death when they can lay hands on them. 




[HEN the feast of the Epiphany (6th January) was 
nigh, that Hermenian monk called Sergius^ told 
me that he would baptize Mangu Chan on that 
feast. And I begged him to do all in his power that I might 

^ Yule {Marco Polo, i, 342) has a coloured representation of one 
of these Mongol paiza. The name paiza, by which Mohammedan 
mediaeval writers call these tablets, and which was also probably the 
term used by the Mongols, is Chinese pai-tzii^ " tablet." Deveria 
{Journ. Astaf., ixe sdrie, viii, 105) describes the various shapes and 
ornamentation of the Mongol paiza. The Kin, in the thirteenth 
century, used badges of office made of silver. They were rectangular, 
bore the imperial seal, and an inscription indicative of the duty of the 
bearer (Chavannes, Voyageurs chez les Khitan, 102). The Nii-chen 
at an earlier date used wooden pai-tzu tied to each horseman and 
horse, to distinguish them by (Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 327, 11 ; see also 
Palladius, op. cit., 39). 

* Deguignes (iii, 127) thinks that this Sergius was the Chancellor of 



1 82 JOURNEY OF • 

be present, and be an eye-witness to it. And this he 
promised me. The feast came, but the monk did not 
call me ; however, at the sixth hour I was called to court, 
and I saw the monk with the priests coming back from the 
court bearing his cross, and the priests had a censer and 
the Gospels. Now on that same day Mangu Chan had 
had a feast, and it is his custom on such days as his 
diviners tell him are holy, or the Nestorian priests say for 
some reason are sacred, for him to hold court,^ and on such 
days first come the Christian priests with their apparel, and 
they pray for him and bless his cup. When they have left, 
the Saracen priests come and do likewise. After them 
come the priests of idols, doing the same thing (314). The 
monk told me that (Mangu) believed only in the Christians, 
but he wanted all to pray for him. But he lied, for he 
believes in none, as you shall learn hereafter, and they all 
follow his court as flies do honey, and he gives to all, and 
they all believe that they are his favourites, and they 
all prophesy blessings to him. 

So we sat for a long time before his ordu^ and they 
brought us meat to eat, but I told them that we would not 
eat there, but that if they wished to provide us with food, 
they should give it to us in our dwelling. Then they said : 
" Go then to your dwelling, for you have only been called 
to eat." So we went back by way of the monk's, who was 
ashamed of the lie he had told us, and to whom I would 
not therefore speak of that matter. Some of the Nestorians, 
however, wanted to assure me that he (Mangu) had been 



King Heythum of Armenia, who Haithon in his Hist, Orient. (39) 
says baptized Mangu and his family. This is impossible, as King 
Heythum only arrived at Mangu's court a month after Rubruck had 
started on his way back to Europe. Furthermore, as our author tells 
us (323), this Sergius was an impostor, who had never taken holy orders. 

^ The greatest festivals were on the New-year and on the Emperor's 
birthday. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 83 

baptized ; I told them that I would never believe it, nor 
say so to others, for I had not seen it. 

We came to our cold and empty dwelling. They had 
supplied us with couches and bed covering, and brought us 
fuel, and given to the three of us the flesh of one poor thin 
sheep for food for six days. Daily they gave us a bowl full 
of millet and a quart of millet mead,^ and they borrowed 
for us a kettle and a tripod to cook our meat ; and when 
it was cooked we boiled the millet in the pot liquor. This 
was our diet ; and it would have been quite sufficient, if 
they had let us eat in peace. But there were so many 
suffering from want of food, who as soon as they (315) saw 
us getting our meal ready, would push in on us, and 
who had to be given to eat with us. Then I experienced 
what martyrdom it is to give in charity when in poverty. 




^T that time the cold began to grow intense, and 
Mangu Chan sent us three gowns of papion skins, 
which they wear with the fur outside, and these 
we received with thankfulness. They inquired also whether 
we had all the food we required. I told them that a little 
food sufficed us, but that we had no house in which we 
could pray for Mangu Chan ; for our hut was so small that 
we could not stand up in it, nor open our books as soon as 
we lit the fire. So they reported these words to him, and 
he sent to the monk to know whether he would like our 
company, and he replied cheerfully that he would. From . 
then on we had a better dwelling, living with the monk 
before the ordu^ where no one lodged except ourselves and 



^ Cervisia de milio. This must be the common huang chiu^ or 
"yellow wine," made in north China with glutinous millet. This 
is the only passage in the narrative in which Friar William refers 
to this beverage. 



1 84 JOURNEY OF 

their diviners ; but these latter were nearer and in front of 
the ordu of the first lady, while we were on the extreme 
eastern end, before the ordu of the last lady. This was on 
the day before the octave of the Epiphany (i2th January). 
The next day, that is on the octave of the Epiphany^ 
all the Nestorian priests assembled before dawn in the 
chapel, beat the board, and solemnly sang matins ; then they 
put on their church vestments, and prepared a censer and 
incense. And as they thus waited in the court of the church, 
the first wife, called Cotota Caten {eaten is the same as 
" lady," Cotota is a proper name),^ entered the chapel with 
several other ladies, and her first-born son called Baltu,and 
some others of her children ; and they prostrated themselves, 
the forehead to the ground, according to the fashion of the 
NestorianS; and after that they touched (316) all the images 
with their right hand, always kissing their hand after touch- 
ing them ;^ and after this they gave their right hands to all 
the bystanders in the cliurch. This is the custom of the 
Nestorians on entering church. Then the priests sang 
a great deal, putting incense in the lady's hand ; and she put 
it on the fire, and then they incensed her. After that when 
it was already bright day, she began taking off her head- 
dress, called bocca, and I saw her bare head,^ and then she 
told us to leave, and as I was leaving, I saw a silver bowl 
brought in. Whether they baptized her or not, I know 
not : but I do know that they do not celebrate mass in 



^ Called Kutuktai Khatun by Mohammedan contemporary writers. 
She was of the Ykiras tribe. She bore Mangu two sons, Baltu and 
Orenguias. After Mangu's death she espoused the cause of Arik 
Buga against Kublai (d'Ohsson, ii, 334, 347). The title Khatun^ in 
Turkish Khaniun^ is formed from Khan^ and was given by the Mon- 
gols as a title to the wives of emperors or princes (Quatrem^re, 88). 

^ An old custom among Eastern Christians and Russians ; 
when one cannot kiss a holy image, one kisses the hand which 
has touched it. The author tells us (320) that Baltu was already 
married at this time. 

^ Friar William notes this/ because married women never appeared 
in public without the bogtak on. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 85 

a tent, but in a substantial church. And at Easter (12th 
April), I saw them baptize and consecrate fonts with 
great ceremony, which they did not do then. 

And as we were going back to our dwelling, Mangu 
Chan came, and entered the church or oratory, and they 
brought him a gilded couch, on which he sat beside his 
lady, facing the altar. Then they summoned us, who did 
not know of the arrival of Mangu, and the door-keeper 
searched us, lest we had knives on us. I entered the 
oratory, with my Bible and breviary in my bosom. First 
I bowed to the altar, and then to the Chan, and passing 
to the other side, we stood between the monk and the 
altar. Then they made us intone a psalm according to 
our fashion and chant. We chanted this prose : " Vent^ 
Sancte Spiritus!' 

The Chan had brought him our books, the Bible and 
the breviary, and made careful inquiry about the pictures, 
and what they meant. The Nestorians answered as they 
saw fit, for our interpreter had not come with us. The 
first time I had been before him, I had also the Bible in 
my bosom, and he had it handed him, and looked at it 
a great deal. Then he went away, but the lady remained 
there and distributed presents to (317) all the Christians 
who were there. To the monk-she gave one iascot, and to 
the archdeacon of the priests another. Before us she had 
placed a nasic^ which is a piece of stuff as broad as a cover- 
lid and about as long,^ and a buccaran ;'^ but as I would 



^ According to Heyd (ii, 698), the nassit or nassith of Italian 
mediaeval traders in the Levant, which I take to be our author's nasic^ 
is a silk gold brocade. The word is derived from the Arabic necidj. 
There was another stuff, differing only from it probably very slightly, 
called nacco^ derived from the Arabic nakh (see also Yule, Cathay^ 
295, 306 ; and Marco Polo^ i, 63, 276, 285 ; and Bretschneider 
Med. Geos:., 288). 

2 He^d (ii, 703) says it is very difficult to determine what kind 
of stuff was sold in the Middle Ages under this name. Victor Gay, he 
adds, the last writer to have studied the question, is of opinion that it 
was of fine flaxen cloth. Yule {Marco Polo^ i, 48) has a very exhaustive 



l86 JOURNEY OF 

not accept them, they were sent to the interpreter, who 
took them for himself. The nasic he carried all the way 
to Cyprus, where he sold it for eighty bezants of Cyprus, 
though it had been greatly damaged on the journey. 
Then drink was brought, rice mead and red wine, like wine 
of La Rochelle,^ and cosmos. Then the lady, holding a full 
cup in her hand, knelt and asked a blessing, and the priests 
all sang with a loud voice, and she drank it all. Likewise, 
I and my companion had to sing when she wanted to 
drink another time. . When they were all nearly drunk, 
food was brought consisting of mutton, which was at 
once devoured, and after that large fish which are called 
carp, but without salt or bread ; of these I ate. And so 
they passed the day till evening. And when the lady was 
already tipsy, she got oYi her cart, the priests singing and 
howling, and she went her way. The next Sunday, when we . 
read : ''^Nuptie facte sunt in Chanal' came the daughter of 
the Chan, whose mother was a Christian, and she did like- 
wise, though with not so much ceremony ; for she made no 
presents, but only gave the priests (318) to drink till they 
were drunk, and also parched millet to eat. 

Before Septuagesima Sunday, the Nestorians fast three 
days, which they call the fast of Jonah, that he preached 
to the Ninivites ; and then also the Hermenians fast for 
five days, which they call the fast of Saint Serkis, who is 
one of the greater saints among them, and who the 
Greeks say was a canon.'^ The Nestorians begin the fast 

note on the subject. He thinks it was a quilted material. In a previous 
passage (290) Friar William uses the expression stamina rigidata^ 
where .the first word has evidently the meaning of the modern French 
^tamine^ our buckram. 

* Red wine was probably brought to the Mongol court from Persia 
and Turkestan, but it must have been an uncommon drink. Can the 
drink of which our author speaks have been tea ? This beverage 
was already in general use in Tibet, and probably Mongolia, in his 
time. 

'-^ This Nestorian fast is called the fast of the Ninivites or of the 
Rogation ; it is kept on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 187 

on the third day of the week, and end it on the fifth, so 
that on the sixth day they eat meat. And at that time I 
saw that the chancellor, that is the grand secretary of the 
court, Bulgai by name, gave them a present of meat on the 
sixth day ; and they blessed it with great pomp, as the 
pascal laoib is blessed. He himself, however, did not eat 
(meat on Friday), and this is also the principle of master 
William the Parisian, who is a great friend of his. The 
monk directed Mangu to fast during the week, and this he 
did, as I heard say. So on the Sunday of Septuagesima 
(8th February), which is as it were the Easter of the 
Hermenians, we went in procession to the dwelling of 
Mangu, and the monk and we two, after having been 
searched for knives, entered into his presence with' the 
priests. And as we were entering a servant came out 
carrying some sheep's shoulder-blades, burnt to coals, and 
I wondered greatly what he could do with them. When 
later on I enquired about it, I learnt that he does nothing 
in the world without first consulting these bones ; he does 
not even allow a person to enter his dwelling without first 
consulting them. This kind of divination is done as follows : 
when he wishes to do (319) anything, he has brought him 
three of these bones not previously charred, and holding 
one, he thinks of the thing about which he wishes to consult 
it, whether he shall do it or not ; and then he hands it to 
a servant to burn. And there are two little buildings beside 



before Lent. Their dominical fast, which corresponds with our Lent, 
lasts seven whole weeks, from our Sunday of Quinquagesima, which 
they call Entry to the Fast, to Easter, Saturdays and Sundays not 
excepted (see Chabot, ']'], and Badger, ii, 187). The Armenians- write 
the name of Sergius, Sarkts. Father Alishan tells me the Armenians 
still celebrate with great pomp after this fast the feast of Saint Sarkis 
the General, of his son Sergius, and of thQ soldiers martyred with them. 
The feast of this Saint Sergius in the Roman church falls on October 
7th (Tournefort, Voya^e^ ii, 164 ; Chardin, ii, 168). I suppose that our 
author uses the word canon in the Greek sense, Y^avoviKo^^ meaning 
that he was a bishop canonically elected. The text is " qui est majof 
sanctus inter eos quern Greci dicunt fuisce canonP 



1 88 JOURNEY OF 

the dwelling in which he lives, in which they burn these bones, 
and these bones are looked for diligently every day through- 
out the whole camp. When they have been charred black, 
they are brought back to him, and then he examines 
whether the bones have been split by the heat throughout 
their length. In that case the way is open for him to act. 
If, however, the bones have been cracked crosswise, or 
round bits have been started out of them, then he may not 
act. For this bone always splits in the fire, or there appear 
some cracks spreading over it. And if out of the three he 
finds one satisfactory, he acts.^ 

When then we were going into his presence, we were 
cautioned not to touch the threshold. The Nestorian priests 
carried incense to him, and he put it in the censer and they 
incensed him. They then chanted, blessing his drink ; and 
after them the monk said his benison, and finally we had 
to say ours.2 And seeing us carrying Bibles before our 



^ This is an extremely accurate description of the method of prac- 
tising scapulomancy or omoplatoscopy, a form of divination widely 
spread over Asia and Europe (see Pallas, Nuchrichtefiy ii, 350 ; 
Quatrem^re, 272 ; Klemm, Cultur^eschichte^ iii, 200 ; Radloff, Aus 
Siberien^ i, 474 ; Gombojew, 654 ; Rockhill, Land of the Lamas^ 341 ; 
also Diary ^ 198 ; Vambery, Sketches of Central Asia^ 219 ; Lubbock, 
Origin of Civilisation, 238 ; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 124). It was 
formerly practised in England, where it was known as "reading the 
speal-bone" (Brand, Popular Antiquities, iii, 339). It was also 
known to the Greeks and Latins. " They sacrificed a sheep or lamb, 
after having formulated in the mind the question to be answered ; 
then they took a shoulder-blade and roasted it over the fire. According 
as the middle ridge remained white and intact in the fire, or became 
cracked, it signified life or death ; if the right-side reddened, or if the 
left-side blackened, it was a sign of war : white signified on either 
side peace" (Bouche Leclercq, Divination,\, 180). In Greece, where 
this form of divination is still in use among the shepherds, the colour 
and arrangements of the spots on the bone after being charred are the 
important s.gns, while with Asiatics the fissures are chiefly consulted. 
Rubruck is careful to note the very important fact, that it is 
necessary, prior to charring the bone, to think of the object of the 
divination. 

2 Friar Odoric tells of having gone in a procession to meet the 
Emperor seated in his chariot. The friars carried before them a cross 
on a high pole, so that it could be seen better, and they sang Veni, 
Saucte Spiritus. " When we came to the chariot by permission of 



FRlAR WlLLlAM OF RUBRDCK:. 1 89 

breasts, he had them handed him to look at, and he 
examined them very carefully. When he had dr.unk, and 
the highest of the priests had served him his cup, they 
gave the priests to drink. After this we went out, and my 
companion who had turned his face toward the Chan 
bowing to him, and following us in this fashion hit the 
threshold of the dwelling ;^ and as we were proceeding 
in all haste to the house of Baltu, his son, those who were 
guarding the threshold (320) laid hands on my companion, 
stopped him, and would not allow him to follow us ; and 
calling someone, they told him to take him to Bulgai, who 
is the grand secretary of the court, and who condemns 
persons to death. But I was in ignorance of all this. 
When I looked back and did not see him coming, I 
thought they had detained him to give him lighter clothing, 
for he was feeble, and so loaded down with furs that 
he could scarcely walk. Then they called our interpreter, 
and made him stay with him. 

We on our side went to the house of the eldest son 
of the Chan, who has already two wives, and who lodges 
on the right side of his father's ordu ; and as soon as he 
saw us coming, he got up from the couch on which he was 
seated, and prostrated himself to the ground, striking the 
ground with his forehead, and worshipping the cross. Then 
getting up, he had it placed on high in the most honoured 
place beside him. He had as a master a certain Nestorian 
priest, David by name, a great drunkard, who was teaching 
him. Then he made us sit down, and had given the priests 



the Lord, for otherwise no one dare approach it, the bishop blessed 
him, and the Emperor kissed the cross quite devoutly ; and as the 
fashion is that no one shall appear before the Emperor without giving 
him something, we presented him a silver platter full of apples" 
(Cordier, Odoric^ 375, 504). 

* Friar Bartholomew tried to follow the usage ot western courts, 
and not to turn his back on the sovereign. Like many others since 
him, he came to grief in this most awkward performance. 



tgO JOURNEY OF 

to drink. And he also drank, after having been blessed 
by them. 

Then we went to the ordti of the second lady, who is 
called Cota,^ and who is an idol follower, and we found 
her lying ill in bed. The monk obliged her to get up from 
her bed, and made her worship the cross with bended knees 
and prostrations, the forehead on the ground, he standing 
with the cross on the west side of the dwelling, and she 
on the east side. When this was done, they changed 
places, and the monk went with the cross to the east side, 
and she to the west ; and he commanded her boldly, 
though she was so feeble she could scarcely stand on her 
feet, to prostrate herself three times, worshipping the cross 
facing the east, in Christian fashion : and this she did. 
And he showed her how to make the sign of the cross 
before her face. After- that, when she had lain down again 
on her (321) bed, prayers having been said for her, we 
went to a third house in which the Christian lady used 
to live. On her death she was succeeded by a young girl^ 
who, together with the daughter of the lord (Mangu?), 
received us joyfully, and all they in this house worshipped 
the cross most devoutly; and she had it placed in a high 
place on a silk cloth, and had food brought, to wit, mutton, 
and it was placed before the master (mistress ?), who caused 
heu to distribute it to the priests. I and the monk, however, 
took neither food nor drink. When the meat had been 
devoured and a great deal of liquor drunk, we had to 
go to the apartment of that damsel Cherina, which was 
behind the big ordu which had been her mother's ; and 
when the cross was brought in she prostrated herself to 



^ I have not found the names of Mangu's concubines in any con- 
temporary work. D'Ohsson (ii, 334) says he had two sons by his 
concubines ; their names were Shiregui and Assutai. 

2 This is the young girl Cherina (or Cirina) spoken of in the next 
phrase. Friar William had his first audience of Mangu in this tent 
(see supra^ p. 172). 



f'RIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IQl 

the ground, and worshipped it right devoutly, for she had 
been well instructed in that, and she placed it in a high 
place on a piece of silk ; and all these pieces of stuff on 
which the cross was put belonged to the, monk. 

A certain Hermenian who had come with the monk had 
brought this said cross from Jerusalem, as he said, and 
it was of silver, weighing perhaps four marks, and had 
nil gems in the angles and one in the centre ; and it did 
not have the image of the Saviour, for the Hermenians and 
Nestorians are ashamed to show the Christ fixed to the 
Cross. And they had presented it to Mangu Chan, and 
Mangu asked him what he wanted. Then he said he was 
the son of an Hermenian priest, whose church had been de- 
stroyed by the Saracens, and he asked his help to restore this 
church. (322) Then (Mangu) asked him with how much 
it could be rebuilt, and he said two hundred iascot — that is 
two thousand marks. And he ordered that he should be 
given letters to him who receives the tribute in Persia and 
Greater Hermenia,^ to pay him this sum of silver. The 
monk carried this cross with him everywhere, and the 
priests seeing how he profited thereby began to envy him. 

So we were in the dwelling of this damsel, and she gave 
the priests much to drink. Thence we went to a fourth 
house, which was the last as to its position and its im- 
portance. For he (/.^., Mangu) did not frequent that lady, 
and her dwelling was old, and she herself little pleasing; 
but after Easter the Chan made her a new house and new 
carts. She, like the second, knew little or nothing of 
Christianity, but followed the diviners and idolaters. 
However, when we went in she worshipped the Cross, 
just as the monk and priests had taught her.^ There 



^ Arghun, I take it, is the person referred to. Rubruck states 
(384) that he resided at Tauris, or Tabriz, in Persia. 

2 The worship of the Cross was reckoned as one of the sacraments 
n the Nestorian Church (Badger, ii, 132, 414). 



192 JOURNEY OF 

again the priests drank ; and thence we went back to 
our oratory, which was near by, the priests singing with 
great howh'ng in their drunkenness, which in those parts is 
not reprehensible in man or in woman. 

Then my companion was brought in and the monk 
chided him most harshly, because he had touched the 
threshold. The next day came Bulgai, who was the judge,^ 
and he closely inquired whether anyone had warned us 
to be careful about touching the threshold, and I answered : 
" My lord, we had no interpreter with us ; how could we 
have understood } " Then he pardoned him, but never 
thereafter was he allowed to enter any dwelling of the 
Chan. 




^T happened after this that the lady Cota (323), who 
had fallen ill about the Sunday of Sexagesima 
(15th February), fell sick even unto death, and 
the sorcerers of the idolaters could do nothing to drive it 
out. Then Mangu sent to the monk, asking him what 
could be done for her, and the monk rashly replied that if 
she did not get well he could cut off his head. Having 
made this promise the monk called us, telling us of the 
affair with tears, and begging us to keep vigils with him 
that night in the oratory ; this we did. And he had a 
certain root called rhubarb,'-^ and he chopped it up till it 



^ Bulgai Aka was not only Chancellor of Mangu, but head of the 
department of finances and of internal affairs of the empire (d'Ohsson, 
ii, 260). 

'^ Marco Polo (i, 219) says : " Overall the mountains of this province 
(of Tangut) rhubarb is found in great abundance, and thither merchants 
come to buy it, and carry it the world over." North-western Kan-su, 
western Ssu-ch'uan, and eastern Tibet, still supply the world with a 
great deal of this root. The Mongols use it medicinally for animals, as 
do the Chinese, I believe, but not often for themselves. The Mongols 
sometimes use it as a dye. See, on the preparation of the root in 
China, Gemelli Carreri (Churchill's Collec.^ bk. iii, ch. v, 365). It is 
said that when Chinghis Khan was pillaging Tangut, the only things 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. I93 

was nearly powder, and put it in water with a little cross 
which he had, and on which was a raised image of the 
Saviour, and by which he- said he could find out whether 
a sick person would recover or die. If he was to escape, it 
stuck on the sick person*s breast as if glued there ; if not, it 
did not stick. And I thought that this rhubarb was some- 
thing holy which he had brought from Jerusalem in the 
Holy Land. And he was in the habit of giving this water 
to drink to all sick persons, and it could not be but their 
bowels were stirred up by such a bitter draught. But 
they considered this movement in their bodies something 
miraculous. 

Then I said to him, as he was preparing it, to make the 
potion with holy water as is done in the Church of Rome, 
for it has great virtue in expelling devils, for we supposed 
that she was beset of a devil ; and at his request we made 
him (324) holy water, and he mixed rhubarb in it, and put 
the cross to soak in it the whole night. I told him also 
that if he was a priest, the sacerdotal order had great 
power in expelling devils. And he said he was ; but he 
lied, for he had taken no orders, and did not know a single 
letter, but was a cloth weaver, as I found out in his own 
country, which I went through on my way back. 

The next day then we went to this lady, the monk, 
I, and two Nestorian priests, and she was in a little (tent) 
behind her larger dwelling. When we went in, she got up 
from her couch, worshipped the Cross, put it reverently 
beside her on a silk cloth, drank some holy water and 
rhubarb, and washed her breast (with it) ; and the monk 
requested me to read the Gospel over her. I read the 
Passion of the Lord according to John. Finally she 



his minister, Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai, would take as his share of the booty 
were a few Chinese books and a supply of rhubarb, with which he saved 
the lives of a great number of Mongols when, a short time after, an 
epidemic broke out in the army (d'Ohsson, i, 372). 



194 JOURNEY OF 

revived and felt better, and she caused to be brought four 
iascot of silver, which she first put at the foot of the Cross, and 
then gave one to the monk, and she held out one to me, which 
I would not receive. Then the monk held out his hand and 
took it. And to either of the priests she gave one ; so she 
gave that time forty marks. Then she had wine brought, 
and gave the priests to drink, and I also had to drink three 
times at her hand in honour of the Trinity. She also 
began to teach me the language, joking with me because I 
was silent, not having an interpreter with me. 

The next day we again went back to her, and Mangu 
Chan, hearing that we had passed that way, made us come 
in unto him, because he had heard that the lady was better ; 
and we found him with a few of his attendants, and he was 
drinking what looked like liquid mud, a dish made of 
paste for (325) the comforting of the head,^ and charred 
sheep's shoulder-blades lay before him, and he took the 
Cross in his hand ; but whether he kissed it or worshipped 
it I did not notice, but he looked at it, asking I know 
not what. 

Then the monk asked permission to carry the Cross on 
high on a lance, for he had previously spoken to the monk 
about this, and Mangu replied : " Carry it as you like best." 
Then, having saluted him, we went to the said lady, and 
wc found her well and bright, and she drank again of the 
holy water, and we read the Passion over her. But these 
miserable priests had never taught her the faith, nor 
advised her to be baptized. I sat there, however, silent, 
unable to say a word, so she again taught me some of the 
language. 

^ Sorbantem liquiciam Urram^ hoc est cibum de pasta^ pro com- 
fortatione capitis. The Chinese in northern China and in Mongolia 
make a kind of brown gruel, with hot water or tea and parched flour, 
in which a few very small pieces of fat mutton have been put. It is 
much used by travellers, and also taken after a drinking bout — such 
as Mangu had probably been having. The Emperor Baber, on 
similar occasions, tells us he took a madjum. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. IQS 

The priests do not condemn any form of sorcery ; for I 
saw there four swords half way out of their scabbards, one 
at the head of the lady's couch, another at the foot, and one 
of the other two on either side of the entry. I also saw 
there a silver chalice, of the kind we use, which had 
perhaps been stolen in some church in Hungary, and it 
was hung on the wall full of ashes, and on the ashes was a 
black stone ; and these priests never teach that such things 
are evil.^ Even more, they themselves do and teach such 
things. 

We visited her {i.e., Cota) on three days, so that she was 
completely restored to health. After that the monk made 
a banner covered with crosses, and got a reed (326) as long 
as a spear, and we used to carry the Cross on high. I 
showed him the respect I would to my bishop, because he 
knew the language. He did, however, many things which 
did not please me. Thus he had made for himself a 
folding-chair, such as bishops are wont to have, and gloves 
and a cap of (with) peacock feathers, and on it a little gold 
cross, which, so far as the cross went, pleased me well. 
He had rough claws, which he tried to improve with 
unguents.2 He showed himself most presumptuous in his 
speech. Furthermore these Nestorians used to recite 
I know not what verses, of a psalm according to them, 
over two twigs which were joined together while held by 
two men.^ The monk stood by during the operation ; and 



^ I cannot explain the purpose of the four swords. The black stone 
may either have been a rain or thunder-stone, or a sharir {sharira in 
Sanskrit, a relic) which Rashideddin says was found in the human 
body after cremation, and was supposed to bring the fortunate posses- 
sor every kind of good luck (Quatrem^re, 439). Different localities in 
Asia were famed for the various magic stones found in them (Yule, 
Cathay, clxxxvii). 

*-* Habebat ungtdas scabiosas quas laborabat decorare un^uentis. 
Can our author mean that he used henneh, or some such substance to 
improve the appearance of his nails ? 

^ See the interesting note of Yule {Marco Polo, i, 237-238). The 
mode of divining here referred to is apparently the same as that 

O 2 



196 JOURNEY OF 

other vanities appeared in him which displeased me. 
Nevertheless, we kept to his company for the honour of 
the Cross ; for we used to carry the cross on high through- 
out the whole camp, singing " Vexilla regis prodeunt" at 
which the Saracens were greatly astonished. 




I ROM the time when we reached the court of Mangu, 
he never moved his carts {bigavif) but twice to- 
ward the south ; and then he began going back 
northward, which was toward Caracarum. One thing I 
remarked throughout the whole journey, which agreed 
with what I had been told by Messire Baldwin of Hainaut 
in Constantinople,^ who had been there, that the one thing 
that seemed extraordinary was that he ascended the whole 
way in going, without ever descending. For all the rivers 
flowed from east to west, either directly or indirectly — that 
is to say, deflecting north or south. And I questioned 
priests, (327) who had come from Cathay, who bore 
witness to it, that from the place where I had found 
Mangu Chan to Cathay was XX days journey between 
south and east ; while to Onan Kerule, which is the 
true country of the Moal, and where is the ordu of 
Chingis, was ten days due east, and that all the way 
to these eastern parts there was no city. There were, 
however (they said), people called Su-Moal, which is 
" Moal of the waters ; " for su is the same as " water." 



described by Polo. It must not, however, be confounded with rabdo- 
mancy, in which bundles of wands or arrows were used. Ammianus 
Marceilinus (xxxi, 2, 350) says this mode of divination was practised by 
the Alans. '' They have a singular way of divining : they take straight 
willow wands and make bundles of them, and on examining them at 
a certain time, with certain secret incantations, they know what is 
going to happen." 

^ See supra^ p. 102, note 2. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 197 

They live on fish and by the chase, for they have no 
flocks, no herds.^ Likewise to the north there is no city, 
but a people raising flocks, and called Kerkis.^ There 



^ Plan de Carpine (708) (see also supra^ p. 112) speaks of the Su- 
Mongals. D'Avezac (532) says that Hammer and Klaproth have 
found this name, or its Chinese equivalent, in Mohammedan and 
Chinese works. To judge by their mode of living, this people were 
probably Tungus, not Mongols. Le Bruyn ( Voyage,s^ v, 224) speaks 
of the Saniongals J but he is only quoting Pian de Carpine. 

2 Here the Kirghiz are meant. In previous passages {supra, pp. 100, 
1 16) the traveller used the name Kerkis to designate the Cherkesses, or 
Circassians. From Chinese sources we learn of the existence of the 
Kirghiz as a nation as early as the third century, A.D. : they were then 
known as Kien-k'un, ICieh-ku or ICu-wu, and lived where Rubruck 
placed them, north of northern Mongolia, on the head- waters of 
the Yenissei, and west of the Baikal. In course of time the 
Chinese changed the mode of writing this name, first to Ho-ku 
and Ho-ku-ssH, and in the latter part of the eighth century to 
Kteh (or Hsiaykia-ssii : meaning in Uigur, we are told, some- 
thing like "yellow and red face." Down to the time of the 
adoption of this last name, the earliest form of their name, or 
Kien-k'un, remained in use among the Chinese. The following 
description of their country and customs, probably in the latter 
part of the eighth century, is very interesting. 1 abridge it slightly 
from Ma Tuan-lin (bk. 348). The Kirghiz country was marshy in 
summer, and in winter covered with deep snow. The people were 
tall, and most of them had blonde (literally red, chHh) hair and green 
eyes. Those who had black hair were rare, and those who had black 
eyes were said to be descendants of Li-ling, a famous Chinese general 
of the Han period, who had taken refuge among them. They raised 
crops of wheat and barley, and made flour by crushing the grain 
on querns, and they used also the grain to make wine. They owned 
great numbers of camels, sheep, cattle and horses. The wild animals 
in their country comprised wild asses, ku-tu (possibly for ku-no, a kind 
of seal), antelope, argali and sables. They had also a variety of fish 
called maOy the smallest of which were seven or eight feet long, with- 
out marks on them or any bones, and their mouths were underneath 
the jaws (sturgeons ?). Of birds they had geese, ducks, magpies and 
hawks. Pine, birch, elm, willow, and a coniferous tree called f^u-sung 
(cypress ?), so tall that a man could not shoot an arrow to the top, grew 
there. Gold, iron and tin were found there. After every rain they 
found (in the beds of the streams ?) a kind of iron called kia-shuy which 
could be made into weapons of extraordinary temper, and which they 
usually gave to the T'u-kiieh (Turks) as tribute. Men were few among 
them, as compared to women. They wore earrings. The men were 
brave. They had tattoo-marks on their hands, and the women when 
they married had them made on the nape of the neck. They lived 
together promiscuously. Their arms consisted of bows and arrows, 
and they carried flags and pennons. They made shields of split 
wood, long enough to cover a horseman to the ground, and had other 
smaller round ones, reaching to the shoulder, to ward off arrow and 
sword blows. Their food, besides the flour previously mentioned. 



198 JOURNEY OF 

are also the Oengai/ who tie polished bones under their 
feet, and propel themselves over the frozen snow and on 
the ice, with such speed that they catch birds and beasts. 
And there is a number of other poor peoples to the north 
as far as they can extend on account of the cold, and 
they confine to the west on "the land of Pascatir, which is 
Greater Hungary, of which I have spoken to you pre- 
viously. The northern end of the angle is unknown,^ on 
account of the great cold. For there is eternal snow and 
ice there. 

I asked (these same priests) about the monsters, or 
human monstrosities, of which Isidorus and Solinus speak.^ 



consisted of meat and mare's milk. Their language was very like 
that of the Uigurs. This people first sent a mission to the court 
of China in A.D. 648, when they came with a mission of the T'ieh-le 
(Oguz Turks). In A.D. 840 the Kirghiz, after more than a century 
of warfare with the Uigurs, finally overthrew their empire. The name 
Kien-k'un is derived from that of the river Kem, or upper Yenissei. 
Kieh'ku and Kieh-^ox Hsid) kia-ssii are transcriptions of the word 
Hakas, the early name of the Kirghiz. The name Kt-li-ki-ssu, or 
Kirghiz, first appears in Chinese works during the Mongol period (see 
d'Ohsson, i, 103; Bretschneider, Anc, Chin, and Arabs , 13; ihid,^ 
Med. Travel, 74 ; and Klaproth, Tabl. Hist., 168). 

^ The Urianghit bishe, or "Forest Urianghit" of Rashiddedin. 
He says they lived in the woods, had no tents, cattle or sheep, only 
wild cattle and an animal called hur, which resembled a mountain 
sheep. They set up bark shelters wherever they camped. He refers 
to the wonderful swiftness with which they travelled over the snow, 
and caught wild animals by means of their snow-shoes, or chaneh. 
During the reign of Chingis, their country was partly occupied by 
Mongol tribes. Quatrem^re, in a note to the above passage, remarks 
that the name Urianghit is found in Manchu orochon, from oron, 
"reindeer," and that this people is the same as the Olenni Tongousi, or 
" Reindeer Tunguses," of the Russians. Duhalde {^Description, iv, 44) 
speaks of the Orotchon living near the river Chikiri. The Mongols 
call these people Vryangshan (Ssanang Setzen, 86, 190), and Abulghazi 
refers to them as Ur-mankatts {Not. et Extr., xiii, 274 ; d'Ohsson, i, 
421 ; F. M. Schmidt, 219). The Chinese annals make frequent 
mention of these Tungus tribes under a variety of names, and 
describe their mode of living in very nearly the same terms as 
Rashiddedin. 

2 Terminus anguli aqicilonaris ignoratur. I am unable to explain 
our traveller's notions as to the cartography of northern Asia. He 
probably refers to the north-east angle. 

3 Solinus (207, 208) (on the authority of Megasthenes) tells of the 
dog-headed people of India, who were without speech ; of the people 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 1 99 

They told me they had never seen such, which astonished 
me greatly, if it be true. All of these said nations, no 
matter how miserable they may be, must serve (the Moal) 
in some manner. For it was a commandment of Chingis, 
that no one man should be free from service, until he be 
so old that he cannot possibly work any more. 

One day a priest from Cathay was seated with me, (328) 
and he was dressed in a red stuff of the finest hue,^ and I 
asked whence came such a colour; and he told me that in the 
countries east of Cathay there are high rocks, among which 
dwell creatures who have in all respects human forms, 
except that their knees do not bend, so that they get along 
by some kind of jumping motion ; and they are not over 
a cubit in length, and all their little body is covered with 
hair, and they live in inaccessible caverns. And the hunters 
(of Cathay) go carrying with them mead, with which they can 
bring on great drunkenness, and they make cup-like holes in 
the rocks, and fill them with this mead. (For Cathay has 
no grape wine, though they have begun planting vines,^ but 
they make a drink of rice.) So the hunters hide themselves, 
and these animals come out of their caverns and taste 
this liquor, and cry " Chin^ chin,'' so they have been given 

with one eye ; of the people who lived on the odour of wild apples and 
nothing else. Isidorus {op. cit., xi, 421) says: "We hear of the 
monstrous faces of people in the remote part of the East ; some 
without noses, their whole face flat and unformed. Others have the 
upper lip so protruding that they go to sleep shaded by it from the 
sun's rays. Others, again, are said to be speechless, using signs 
instead of language." Herodotus (iii, 9, 20) had already spoken of the 
one-eyed Arimaspians. Pliny (vii, 2, 282) is the authority from 
which Solinus and Isidorus derived their information. Pliny, in turn, 
derived his facts from the work of Megasthenes (see also supra, p. 12 
and p. 36). 

^ This priest must have been a Tibetan lama who had visited China. 
Chinese priests (whether Buddhist or Taoist) have never worn red 
gowns, and Friar William has told us that all the Tuin among the 
Mongols dressed in yellow. 

2 Though the Chinese have never made wine from the grape, the 
vine has been cultivated in China since the second century B.C., when 
it was brought there from Turkestan by the great traveller, Chang- 
k'ien. 



200 JOURNEY OF 

a name from this cry, and are called Chinchin. Then they 
come in great numbers, and drink this mead, and get 
drunk, and fall asleep. Then come the hunters, who bind 
the sleepers' feet and hands. After that they open a vein 
in their necks, and take out three or four drops of blood, 
and let them go free ; and this blood, he told me was 
most precious for colouring purples.^ They also told 
me as a fact (which I do not, however, believe), that there 
is a province beyond Cathay, and at whatever age a 
man enters it, that age he keeps which he had on 
entering.^ 

Cathay is on the ocean. And master William told me 
(329) that he had himself seen the envoys of certain people 



^ The story here told is found in a Chinese work, entitled, Chu 
ch^uan or " Record of notes " by Wang-kang of T'ai-yuan, in Chu, but 
1 have been unable to ascertain the date at which it was written. 
The author says : '' Yuan-yen, having been sent on a mission to 
Feng-chi (in Tongking), learnt from some of the natives that the 
hsing-hsing {2i species of gibbon with yellow hair, sharp ears, and human 
face) love wine. As they have regular paths they travel over in the 
mountain gorges in bands of hundreds, the country people (set out 
wine; to catch them with. When they see the wine they know that it 
is some man's trick to catch them ; and as these animals are very 
clever and know the men's fathers and grandfathers and their names, 
they revile them, saying : ' You want to kill me, but I don't want (your 
wine), and I'm off ! ' Then they go off a little way, but come back, 
calling each other, and saying, 'Let us all try the wine' ; so they drink, 
and finding the flavour agreeable, they keep on drinking till they are 
no longer able to escape. Then the people shut them up in a pen to 
fatten them for food, and when they want a fat one to cook (these 
hsins:-hsing) pick it out themselves, and with tears push it out." 
The other details of Friar William's story are supplied by another 
Chinese work, entitled Hua-yang kuo chiJi^ or *' Topographical 
description of the state of Hua-yang." Hua-yang included part of 
the present province of Ssu-ch'uan. This work says : " The hsing- 
hsing is found in the Shan (Ai-lao) country, in the province of 
Yung-chan. It can speak. A red dye can be made with its blood." 
The above quotations are taken from Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 329, 8. Yule 
{Glossary 0/ References, 154) says that "the story as told by Rubruck 
is related with singular closeness of correspondence out * of the 
Chinese books of geography' by Francesco Carletti in 1600, in his 
RagionainenW^ (see also Cathay, cxxvi). 

2 I have no doubt that this refers to the popular Chinese fables con- 
cerning the fabulous Kun-lun mountains, where lives the fairy queen, 
Hsi-wang mu, and where grows the peach which insures immortality 
to the fortunate mortal who eats it. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 201 

called Caule and Manse, who live on islands the sea 
around which freezes in winter, so that at that time the 
Tartars can make raids thither ; and they had offered (them^ 
thirty-two thousand tumen of iascot a year, if they would 
only leave them in peace. A tumen is a number containing 
ten thousand.^ 

The common money of Cathay is a paper of cotton, in 
length and breadth a palm, and on it they stamp lines 
like those on the seal of Mangu.^ They (/>., the 
Cathayans) write with a brush such as painters paint 

^ Caule is Kao-li, the name of the dynasty which reigned in Korea 
till the middle of the fifteenth century, when the present dynasty, 
which styles itself Chao-hsien, came to the throne. The name of the 
dynasty is applied always to the kingdom. The Manse must be the 
Manze of Marco Polo, the empire of the Sung. It is quite out of the 
question to accept Peschel's wi^vf {Erdkunde, 169), that the Manse were 
Manchus. That name was not used in the thirteenth century ; the 
Manchus were then confounded with the Longa and Solanga. It is 
possible that the person who told William Buchier of this people, and 
of the islands on which they lived, had in mind the island of Kang-hua 
off the Korean coast, which was a place of refuge for the Korean kings 
when pressed by their enemies. In fact, we learn, that when in 1231 
Korea revolted against the Mongols, the king took up his residence 
on this island. In 1241 the King of Korea made his submission to 
Ogodai, and sent one of his relatives to the Mongol coast (d'Ohsson, 
ii, 74, 75). This may have been the Korean mission seen by Buchier. 
The Sung (Rubruck's Manse) had allied themselves with the Mongols 
against the Kin, and probably sent from about 1230 to 1234 numerous 
missions to the court of Ogodai. As to the extraordinary tribute 
which our traveller says Buchier told him had been offered by the 
Caule and Manse, in our money it would be nearly ;^ 16,600 millions ; 
this can only be treated as a wild statement made by someone who 
knew nothing about the subject. 

'-^ Our traveller says the paper was made of bombax^ but nearly all 
other contemporary writers, Oriental as well as Western, say the notes 
of the Mongols were made of mulberry fibre paper (Yule, Marco 
PolOy i, 409, and Jordanus, 46 ; Cordier, Odoric, 380 ; Mesalek al- 
adsar, 223). Palladius {op. cit., 50), says that up to his time (1876) there 
was kept at Hsi-an Fu a block used for printing the bank notes of the 
Kin dynasty, from whom the Mongols borrowed the system ; and that he 
had seen a print of these notes. No prints of these bank notes, nor even 
Mongol ones, are known to me to be now in existence. Those of the 
Ming dynasty are well known (see Yule, Marco Polo^ i, 412). As 
early as B.C. 1 18, we find the Chinese using " leather money " (fi pi). 
These were pieces of white deer-skin, a foot square, with a coloured 
border. Each had a value of 40,000 cash (Ma Tuan-lin, bk 8, 5). See 
also Vissering, Chinese Currency^ 38, 160, et seq. ; and Lacouperie, 
Numis, Chron.^ ii, 3rd series, pp. 334-341. 



202 JOURNEY OF 

with, and they make in one figure the several letters 
containing a whole word.^) The Tebet write as we do, 
and have characters quite like ours. The Tanguts write 
from right to left like the Arabs, but they repeat the lines 
running upwards ; the lugur, as previously said (write) 
up and down. /The ordinary money of the Ruthenians are 
skins of vaire and minever.*^ 




[HEN we came (to live) with the monk, he advised 
us, in all kindliness, to abstain from meat; that 
our servant would get meat with his servants; 
and that he would provide us with flour and oil or butter : 
this we did, though it greatly incommoded my companion 
on account of his weakness. Consequently, our diet con- 
sisted of millet with butter (330), or dough cooked in 
water with butter, or sour milk and unleavened bread, 
cooked in a fire of cattle- or horse-dung. 

When came Quinquagesima (23rd February), which is 
the Carnival of all Eastern (Christians),^ the great lady 

1 This is the earliest reference to Chinese writing found in western 
works. Yule (Ency. Brit.^ xxxi, 4), justly remarks: "This is a remark- 
able utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of 
Chinese writing." 

2 Already, in the thirteenth century, the Russian princes levied the 
taxes on their people in honey and in furs. The price of objects was 
fixed in kuni^ or " skins." A certain number of kuni formed a grivna^ 
the equivalent of half a pound of silver. Instead of using the whole 
skin of the marten or squirrel (kubruck's " Vaire and Miniver," see 
supra, p. 44, note i )^he head alone was sometimes used : thus we read 
of capitata martatormn (^or kuni mordki in Russian)) Pieces of the 
skins of martens and squirrels, probably bearing the Government 
stamp, were also current. In the middle of the thirteenth century, 
a marten (or sable) skin was worth about ten squirrel skins 
^{Caramsin, i, 308, iii, 371, 372, 376)^. Ibn Dasta says that the 
Bulgars of the Volga also used among themselves sable skins for 
money (Hciesler, Romlmische S/uciien, 362)y The name polushka in 
Russian, given to a small coin worth a quarter of a kopeck, means 
literally " half a skin." 

3 " Venit auiem quinquagesima, que est carnis primum omnium 
orientaliumP 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 203 

Cotata^ and her company fasted that week ; and she came 
every day to our oratory, and gave food to the priests and 
to the other Christians, of whom a great multitude gathered 
there that first week to hear the services ; and she gave 
me and my companion each of us a tunic and trousers 
of grey samite,^ lined with silk wadding, for my companion 
had complained greatly of the weight of his fur gown. 
These I received for the sake of my companion, though 
I excused myself for not wearing such clothes. I gave 
what belonged to me to my interpreter. 

The gate-keepers of the court seeing such a crowd 
pressing toward the church, which was just beyond the 
bounds of the court, the warders of the court sent one 
of their number to the monk, to tell him they would not 
have such a great multitude congregating there just 
beyond the court limits. Then the monk replied roughly 
that he wanted to know if they gave this as the order 
of Mangu, adding also some threats, as if he would make 
complaint of them to Mangu. So they forestalled him 
and accused him to Mangu, saying that he talked too 
much, and that too great a multitude met together at 
his talks. 

After that, on Quadragesima Sunday (ist March) we 
were called to court, and when the monk had been so 
shamefully searched to see whether he had a knife that 
he of his own accord took off his shoes (331), we entered 
into the Chan's presence, and he had a charred sheep's 
shoulder-blade in his hand, and was inspecting it ; and 
then, as if reading on it, he began to reprimand the monk, 
asking why, since he was a man who ought to pray to 



1 Kutuktai Khatun, the first wife of Mangu (see supra, p. 184). 

^ Sarnico grisio. Samite was a heavy silk stuff, with gold or silver 
threads woven in it. It was first manufactured in the islands of 
Greece, where it was known as exajniton {i^a^iTov), but later on at 
Acre, Beyrut, Laodicea, Damas and Alexandria (Heyd, ii, 669). I 
fancy that the samite here referred to was a Chinese brocaded silk. 



204 JOURNEY OF 

God, he talked so much to men. I was standing behind 
with uncovered head, and the Chan said to him : " Why- 
do you not uncover your head, when you come into my 
presence, as this Frank does ? '' Then the monk in great 
confusion took ofif his hat, against the custom of the Greeks 
and Hermenians ; and when the Chan had said many 
harsh things to him, we went out. And then the monk 
handed me the Cross to carry to the oratory, for such 
was his confusion that he did not want to carry it. 

After a few days he made his peace with the Chan, 
promising that he would go to the Pope, and that he 
would bring all the nations of the west to owe him 
obedience. When he came back to the oratory after this 
conversation with the Chan, he began inquiring about the 
Pope, whether I believed he would see him, if he came 
to him on the part of Mangu, and if he would furnish him 
with horses as far as Saint James.^ He inquired also 
concerning you, if I believed that you would send your 
son to Mangu. Then I warned him to be careful not 
to make lying promises to Mangu, for he would be making 
a ne\y mistake more serious than the first, and that God 
did not want lies from us, or that we should speak 
deceitfully. 

At this time there arose a controversy between the 
monk and a certain priest called Jonas, a well-read man, 
whose father had been archdeacon, and whom the other 
priests looked upon as a teacher and archdeacon. For the 
monk said that man had been made before paradise, and 
that the Gospel said so. Then I was called upon to decide 
this (332) question. I, without knowing that they were 
arguing on the subject, replied that the paradise had been 
made the third day, when also all the trees were ; and 
that man had been made on the sixth day. Then the 

^ St. James of Compostella, in Galicia in Spain, is meant, I suppose. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 20$ 

monk began to say : " Did not the devil on the first day 
bring earth from the four parts of the world, and having 
made mud of it, did he not make the human body, and 
did not God breathe a soul into it?"^ Hearing the 
Manichean heresy, and he thus publicly and impudently 
proclaiming it, I upbraided him sharply, telling him to put 
his finger on his mouth, since he did not know the Scrip- 
tures, and to be careful not to tell the reason of his fault. 
But he began to scoff at me, because I did not know the 
language. So I left him and went to our dwelling. 

After that it happened that he and the priests went 
in procession to the court, without telling me, for the 
monk was not speaking to me on account of this scolding, 
and he did not want to take me with him as he used to 
do. So when they came into the presence of Mangu, and 
he did not see me among them, he inquired where I was, 
and why I had not come with them. But the priests were 
afraid, and excused themselves. When they came back 
they told me what Mangu had said, and complained of the 
monk. After that the monk made his peace with me, and 
I with him, begging him to help me with the language, 
and that I would help him with the Sacred Scriptures. 
For "the brother who is aided by the brother is like a 
strong city."2 



1 The Manichaeans say that Adam was engendered by Satan, in 
conjunction with sin, cupidity and desire ; but the spirit of darkness 
drove into him all the portions of light he had stolen, in order to be 
able to dominate them the more surely. Hence, Adam is a discordant 
being, created in the image of Satan, but carrying within him the 
stronger spark of light. Eve was given him by Satan as a companion, 
and Cain and Abel were her sons by Satan (Harnack, Ency. Brit., 
XV, 483). On this Jonas and his death, see infra^ p. 216. 

2 Proverbs^ xviii, 19, in the Vulgate. 




2o6 JOURNEY OF 

^FTER the first week of the fast, the lady ceased 
to come to the oratory and to give the food and 
mead we were accustomed to get. The monk 
did not allow (any food) to be bought, saying that (333) 
mutton tallow was used in preparing it. He only very 
rarely gave us oil. Consequently, we had nothing save 
bread cooked on the ashes, and dough boiled in water, so 
that we could have soup to drink, as the only water we 
had was melted snow or ice, and was very bad. Then my 
companion began to complain greatly ; so I told our 
necessity to that David, who was the teacher of the eldest 
son of the Chan, and he reported my words to the Chan, 
who had us given wine and flour and oil. The Nestorians 
will not eat fish during Lent, neither will the Her- 
menians ;^ so they gave us a skin of wine. The monk 
said he only ate on Sunday, when this lady sent him 
a meal of cooked dough with vinegar to drink.^ But 
he had beside him, under the altar, a box with almonds 
and raisins and prunes, and many other fruits, which he 
ate all through the day whenever he was alone. We ate 
once a day, and then in great misery ; for it was known 
that Mangu Chan had given us wine, so they pushed their 
way in on us like dogs in the most impudent manner, both 



1 Toumefort {Voyages, ii, 164) says: "The Lent of the Greeks 
is a high festival compared to that of the Armenians ; besides its 
extraordinary length, it is not allowed them during that time to eat 
anything but roots ; and it is even forbidden them to eat as much of 
these as will satisfy their appetite. The use of shell-fish, oil, wine, is 
forbidden, except on Holy Saturday ; they take on that day butter, 
cheese, and eggs. Easter they eat meat, but only such as has 
been killed that day. . . . Besides the great Fast, they have four 
others of eight days each during the year. . . . These Fasts are as 
severe as the great one : there is no question at such times of either 
eggs, fish, or even oil or butter ; some persons there are who take no 
food whatever for three or four days "consecutively." 

2 This dish, called mien by the Chinese, is the most common article 
of diet in northern China and Mongolia. The vinegar, or soy, is used 
to season the water in which the paste has been cooked, and is drunk 
as soup. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 207 

the Nestorian priests, who were getting drunk all day 
at court, and the Moal, and the servants of the monk. 
Even the monk himself, when someone came to him to whom 
he wished to give drink, would send to us for wine. So it 
was that that wine brought us (334) more vexation than 
comfort, for we could not refuse to give of it without 
causing scandal ; if we should give it, we would want 
it ; nor would we dare ask for more from the court, when 
that was done. 




HOWARD the middle of Lent, the son of master 
William arrived bringing a beautiful crucifix, 
made in French style, with a silver image of 
the Christ fixed on it. Seeing it, the monks and priests 
stole it, though he was to have presented it from his 
master to Bulgai, the grand secretary of the court ; when 
I heard of this I was greatly scandalized. 

This young man also informed Mangu Chan that the 
work he had ordered to be done was finished ; and this work 
I shall here describe to you. Mangu had at Caracarum 
a great palace, situated next to the city walls, enclosed 
within a high wall like those which enclose monks' priories 
among us. Here is a great palace, where he has his 
drinkings twice a year : once about Easter, when he passes 
there, and once in summer, when he goes back (westward). 
And the latter is the greater (feast), for then come to his 
court all the nobles, even though distant two months 
journey; and then he makes them largess of robes and pre- 
sents, and shows his great glory. There are there many 
buildings as long as barns, in which are stored his 
provisions and his treasures.^ In the entry of this great 

^ The Mongol palace at Peking was similarly arranged (Marco 
Polo, i, 356 ; Bretschneider, Archceological Researches^ 32 ; see also 
on the palace of Karakorum, infra). 



208 JOURNEY OF 

palace, it being unseemly to bring in there skins of milk 
and other drinks, master William the Parisian had made 
for him a great silver tree, and at its roots are four lions 
of silver, each with a conduit through it, and all belching 
forth white milk of mares.^ (33S) And four conduits are 
led inside the tree to its tops, which are bent downward, 
and on each of these is also a gilded serpent, whose tail 
twines round the tree. And from one of these pipes flows 
wine, from another caracosmos, or clarified mare's milk, 
from another bal^ a drink made with honey, and from 
another rice mead, which is called terracina; and for each 
liquor there is a special silver bowl at the foot of the tree 
to receive it. Between these four conduits in the top, he 
made an angel holding a trumpet, and underneath the tree 
he made a vault in which a man can be hid. And pipes 
go up through the heart of the tree to the angel. In the 
first place he made bellows, but they did not give enough 
wind. Outside the palace is a cellar in which the liquors 
are stored, and there are servants all ready to pour them 
out when they hear the angel trumpeting. And there are 
branches of silver on the tree, and leaves and fruit. When 
then drink is wanted, the head butler cries to the angel to 
blow his trumpet. Then he who is concealed in the vault, 
hearing this blows with all his might in the pipe leading 
to the angel, and the angel places the trumpet to (336) his 
mouth, and blows the trumpet right loudly. Then the 
servants who are in the cellar, hearing this, pour the 
different liquors into the proper conduits, and the conduits 
lead them down into the bowls prepared for that, and then 
the butlers draw it and carry it to the palace to the men 
and women.2 

1 Lac album jwnenii^ by which is meant the dregs left over from the 
preparation of caracos?nos^ and which, we are told, was given to the 
slaves as a drink. 

2 Similar works of art and mechanical contrivances were often seen 
n eastern courts. The earliest 1 know of is the golden plane tree and 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 209 

And the palace is like a church, with a middle nave, and 
two sides beyond two rows of pillars, and with three doors 



grape vine with bunches of grapes in precious stones, which was given 
to Darius by Pythius the Lydian, and which shaded the king's couch 
(Herodotus, iv, 24). The most celebrated, however, and that which 
may have inspired Mangu with the desire to have something like it 
at his court, was the famous Throne of Solomon (SoXo/xcai/TfOf Qpovos) of 
the Emperor of Constantinople, Theophilus (a.d. 829-842). Luitprand 
of Cremona, who was in Constantinople in 946 as ambassador of 
Berengarius IL, describes as follows the audience granted him by 
Constantine Porphyrogenitus in the Magnaura Palace. " Constantine, 
as much on account of the Spanish ambassadors who had then 
recently arrived, as for myself and Luitfred, received us with the 
following ceremonial. A gilt bronze tree was before the Emperor, 
and its branches were covered with various kinds of gilt birds, each 
one of which sang according to its kind. The throne was so artfully 
contrived that while at one moment it was on the ground, at the next 
it was off it, and anon it was seen high up in the air. The foot of the 
throne, which was of great size, and made I know not whether of 
bronze or wood, had great gilt lions guarding it. I was brought into 
the presence of the Emperor supporting myself on the shoulders of 
two eunuchs. As soon as I appeared, the lions roared and the birds 
sang according to their various kinds. I felt no terror, however, nor 
was I moved with astonishment, for I had made inquiry concerning 
all these things of one who knew all about them. Having worshipped 
(the Emperor) for the third time by a full-length prostration, I raised 
my head, and whereas I had seen him in the first place seated a little 
higher up than the floor, I now saw him dressed in other robes, and 
seated near the ceiling of the room" (Luitprand, Historia^ vi, 26, in 
Muratori, Rerum Italicarum^ ii, 469 ; see also Constantine Porphyro- 
genitus, De Ceremon.^i^ 566-569). 

Abulfeda states that in a.d. 917 the envoys of Constantine Por- 
phyrogenitus to the Caliph el Moktader saw in the palace at Bagdad 
a tree with eighteen branches, some of gold, some of silver, and on 
them were gold and silver birds, and the leaves of the tree were of 
gold and silver. By means of machinery, the leaves were made to 
rustle and the birds to sing. 

Mirkhond speaks also of a tree of gold and precious stones in the 
city of Sultanieh, in the interior of which were conduits through which 
flowed drinks of different kinds. Clavijo (161) describes a somewhat 
similar tree at the court of Timur. 

Kublai Khan had in his palace at Peking "a large and very beautiful 
piece of workmanship," ifrom which various liquors were drawn 
(Marco Polo, i, 369) ; and Friar Odoric (Yule, Cathay, 130) describes 
a wonderfully richly ornamented jar in the same palace, into which 
drink was conveyed by conduits from the court of the palace. 
Bretschneider {Archceolog. Researches, 28) describes an organ in the 
Mongol palace at Peking which was connected in some way with 
two peacocks seated on a cross-bar, and when the instrument was 
played, the birds danced. 

P 



2IO JOURNEY OF 

to the south/ and beyond the middle door on the inside 
stands the tree, and the Chan sits in a high place to the 
north, so that he can be seen by all ; and two rows of steps 
go up to him : by one he who carries his cup goes up, and 
by the other he comes down. The space which is in the 
middle between the tree and these steps by which they go 
up to him is empty ; for here stands his cup-bearer, and 
also envoys bearing presents ; and he himself sits up there 
like a divinity. On (his) right side, that is to the west, are 
the men, to the left the women. The palace extends from 
the north (southward). To the south, beside the pillars 
on the right side, are rows of seats raised like a platform, 
on which his son and brothers sit. On the left side it 
is arranged in like fashion, and there sit his wives and 
daughters. Only one woman sits up there beside him, 
though not so high as he.^ 

When then he heard that the work was finished, he 
ordered the master to put it in place and fix it well, and 
then toward Passion Sunday (29th March) he started out 
with his light tents,^ leaving the big ones behind him. 
And the monk and we followed him, and he sent us (337) 
another skin of wine. And on the way we passed between 
mountains where there was excessive wind and cold and 
much snow fell. So toward the middle of the night he 

^ This palace was evidently built in purely Chinese style, and must 
have resembled the halls or audience pavilions {tien and fing) of 
modern Chinese palaces. 

2 Marco Polo (i, 368) says : " The Great Khan sits facing the south, 
and his chief wife sits beside him on the left. On his right sit his 
son and his nephews, and other kinsmen of the Blood Imperial, but 
lower, so that their heads are on a level with the Emperor's feet. 
And then the other Barons sit at other tables lower still. So also 
with the women ; for all the wives of the Lord's sons and of his 
nephews and other kinsmen, sit at the lower table to his right ; and 
below them again the ladies of other Barons and Knights, each 
in the place assigned by the Lord's orders (conf also Odoric's account, 
Cathay^ 141 ; see also supra^ p. 24 and p. 38). 

^ Parvis dominibus^ that is to say. the tents which could be taken 
down and loaded on camels and horses. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 211 

sent to the monk and us, asking us to pray God to temper 
this cold and wind, for all the animals in the caravan^ were 
in danger, particularly as they were then heavy with young 
and bringing forth. Then the monk sent him incense, 
telling him that he himself should put it on coals and offer 
it to God. I know not whether he did this, but the 
tempest, which had already lasted two days, abated when 
the third day of it was already beginning. 




|N Palm Sunday (5th April) we were near Caracarum. 
At early dawn we blessed some boughs, on which 
no signs of budding had yet appeared. And 
toward the ninth hour we entered the city, with raised 
Cross and banner, and passed through the Saracen quarter, 
where there is a square and a market, to the church. And 
the Nestorians came to meet us in a procession. Going 
into the church, we found them ready to celebrate mass ; 
and when it was celebrated they all communicated and in- 
quired of me whether I wished to communicate. I replied 
that I had already drunk, and could not receive the 
sacrament except fasting. When the mass had been 
said it was already after noon, so master William took 
us with great rejoicing to his house to dine with him ; and 
he had a wife who was a daughter of Lorraine, but born 
in Hungary, and she spoke French and Coman well. We 
found there also another person, Basil by name, the son of 
an Englishman, and who (338) was born in Hungary, and 
who also knew these languages. We dined with great 



^ Friar William uses the word cojnitatu. The term " caravan " was, 
however, known in Europe in his time. Matth. Paris, for example, 
says : " omnem illain caiervam^ quam vulgares karavanam appel- 
lant . . . ." 

P 2 



212 JOURNEY OF 

rejoicing, and then they led us to our hut, which the 
Tartars had set up in an open space near the church, with 
the oratory of the monk.^ 

The next day the Chan entered his palace, and the 
monk and I and the priests went to him, but they did not 
allow my companion to go because he had trod upon the 
threshold. I had pondered much within myself what I 
should do, whether I should go or not ; but I feared the 
scandal if I withdrew from the other Christians, and it 
pleased the Chan, and I feared it might interfere with the 
good I hoped to do ; so I decided to go, though I saw that 
their sect was full of sorceries and idolateries. But I did 
nothing else while there but pray with a loud voice for the 
whole church, and also for the Chan, that God might guide 
him in the way of everlasting salvation. 

So we entered the court, which is right well arranged ; 
and in summer little streams are led all through it by 
which it is watered. After that we entered a palace all 
full of men and women, and we stood in the Chan's 
presence, with the tree of which I have spoken behind 
us, and it and the bowls (at its base) took up a large part 
of the palace. The priests had brought two little loaves 
of blessed bread, and fruit in a platter, which they pre- 
sented to him, after saying grace. And a butler took 
it to him where he was seated on a right high and raised 
place ; and he forthwith began to eat one of the loaves, 
and the other he sent to his son and to one of his younger 
brothers, who was being brought up by a certain Nestorian, 



^ The same small tent the travellers had occupied since arriving in 
Mangu's camp. The oratory of the monk was evidently also a tent. The 
Mongols when at Karakorum probably lived ia tents, just as many of 
them do at the present day when in Peking. The only houses in 
Karakorum were, 1 think, those of the Mohammedan and Chinese 
quarters ; besides these, there were, I suppose, a number of buildings 
used by Chinese and other foreign officials attached to the Mongol 
court, and some public offices (see also /;//r^,'p. 220, and on Basil, 
infra, p. 223). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 213 

and he knows the Gospels, and had also sent for my Bible 
to look at it. 

After the priests (339), the monk spoke his oraison, and 
I mine after the monk. Then he (Mangu) promised that he 
would come the next day to the church, which is rather large 
and fine, and the whole ceiling is covered with a silken stuff 
interwoven with gold. The next day, however, he went 
his way, telling the priests in excuse that he did not dare 
come to the church, for he understood that they carried 
the dead there.^ We remained, however, with the monk 
at Caracarum, together with the other priests of the court, 
to celebrate Easter there. 

Holy Thursday and Easter were nigh, and I did not 
have our vestments, and I was considering the manner 
of doing of the Nestorians, and was greatly worried about 
what I should do, whether I should receive the sacrament 
from them, whether I should say mass in their vestments, 
with their chalice and on their altar, or whether I should 
wholly abstain. from the sacrament. Then came a great 
number of Christians, Hungarians, Alans, Ruthenians, 
Georgians, Hermenians, all of whom had not seen the 
sacrament since their capture, for the Nestorians would not 
admit them into their church, so they said, unless they were 
rebaptized by them. However (the Nestorians) had not 
told us anything of all this ; on the contrary, they confessed 
that the Roman Church was the head of all churches, and 
that they should receive their patriarch from the Pope, if 
the roads were open.^ And they offered us freely their 
sacrament, and made us stand in the entry of the choir to 



^ This is explained by referring to what the traveller has stated 
previously {supra^ p. 80). 

2 When in Rome in 1288, the Nestorian envoy of Arghun, Rabban 
Sauma, was allowed by Pope Nicolas IV to celebrate mass, and on 
Palm Sunday the Pope gave him communion. To the Nestorian 
patriarch Mar Jabalaba III the Pope sent his tiara, his ring, and church 
vestments of price (Chabot, op, cit.^ 86, 87, 92). 



214 JOURNEY OF 

see their way of doing, and, on Easter eve (nth April), be- 
side the font to see their mode of baptizing. They said that 
they had some of the ointment with which Mary Magdalen 
anointed the feet of the Lord, and they always pour in oil 
to the (340) amount they take out, and they knead it into 
their bread. For all the Eastern (Christians) put grease into 
their bread instead of yeast, or else butter or sheep's tail 
fat or oil.^ They also say that they have some of the flour 
with which was made the bread that the Lord consecrated, 
and they put back in it as much as they take out ; and 
they have a room beside the choir, and an oven where they 
bake the bread, which they must consecrate with great 
devotion. 

So they make a loaf of bread a palm broad with this oil, 
and then they divide it first into xii pieces according to 
the number of the Apostles, and after that they divide 
these portions according to the number of the people, and 
a priest gives to each the body of Christ in his hand, and 
the person takes it from his hand devoutly, and touches 
the top of his head with his hand. 

Then I made them confess through the interpreter as 
well as I could, stating the x commandments and the vii 
mortal sins, and the others which one should shun and 
publicly confess. They excused themselves for theft, 
saying that without thieving they could not live, for their 
masters did not provide them with either clothing or 
victuals. So, considering that they and their belongings 

1 Mar Abd Yeshma, the Nestorian Metropolitan of Nisibis at the 
end of the thirteenth century, in his work entitled '* The Jewel," says : 
" The holy and blessed Apostles Thomas and Bartholomew of the 
twelve, and Adi and Mari of the seventy, who discipled the East, 
committed to all the Eastern churches a Holy Leaven, to keep for the 
perfecting of the administration of the sacrament of the Lord's Body until 
His coming again" (Badger, ii, 409). On the origin of the custom, see 
Assemani (ii, 182). The Greeks used leavened bread, but not so the 
Armenians. The latter make their wafers the day before they are to 
be consecrated. They are like those used in the Roman Church, bu t 
three or four times thicker (Tournefort, ii, 165). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 21 5 

had been carried off without just cause, I said that it was 
permissible for them to take of their master's things what 
was necessary for them, and I was ready to say so to 
(341) Mangu Chan's face. Furthermore, certain among 
them were soldiers, who excused themselves for being 
obliged to go to wars, for otherwise they would be put to 
death. I strongly forbad them to go against Christians, 
or to injure them ; they should rather let themselves be 
killed, for then they would become martyrs ; and I said that 
if anyone wished to charge me to Mangu Chan with this 
teaching, I was ready to preach this in his hearing. The 
Nestorians from the court had approached while I was 
teaching, and I suspected that they might inform against us. 
Then master William had made for us an iron to 
make wafers, and he had some vestments which he had 
made for himself; for he had some little scholarship, and 
conducted himself like a clerk. He had made after the 
French fashion a sculptured image of the Blessed Virgin, 
and on the windows surrounding it ^ he had sculptured the 
Gospel history right beautifully, and he made also a silver 
box to put the body of Christ in, with relics in little 
cavities made in the sides of the box. He had also made 
an oratory on a cart, finely decorated with sacred scenes. 
I accepted his vestments and blessed them, and we made 
right fine wafers after our fashion, and the Nestorians gave 
me the use of their baptistery, in which was an altar. Their 
patriarch had sent them from Baldach a quadrangular skin 
for an antimensium,^ and it had been anointed with chrism ; 

^ Fenestris claudentibus. The image of the Virgin was placed in a 
recess, with hinged doors (jenestrd) closing in front of it. 

'^ Baldach or Baudas is the usual way employed by western writers 
of the period to transcribe the name of Bagdad. It is used by the 
Chinese mediaeval writers, in the form Paota^ though Pai-ko-ta is 
also met with. Consecrated altar-covers, to be used when the altar 
could not be properly consecrated, were used both in the Latin and the 
Eastern Church ; they were called antiinensium (from ante and mensa), 
in Greek avrifiia-iov, also written dfjrifuvaiov. The Greek antimensia 



2l6 JOURNEY OF 

and this they used instead of a consecrated stone. So I 
celebrated mass on Holy Thursday (9th April) with their 
silver chalice and patene, and these vases were very large ; 
and likewise on Easter day. And we made the people 
communicate, with the blessing of God (342), as I hope. 
As for them they baptized on Easter eve (nth April) more 
than sixty persons in very good order, and there was 
great rejoicing generally among all the Christians. 




tHEN it happened that master William fell griev- 
ously ill ; and, as he was convalescing, the monk, 
while visiting him, gave him rhubarb to drink, so 
that he nearly killed him. So when I called on him 1 found 
him in this distressing condition, and I asked him what he 
had eaten or drunk. And he told me how the monk had 
given him this drink, and how he had drunk two bowls full, 
thinking it was holy water. Then I went to the monk and 
said to him : " Either go as an apostle doing real miracles 
by the grace of the Word and the Holy Ghost, or do as a 
physician in accordance with medical art. You give to 
drink to men not in a condition for it, a strong medicinal 
potion, as if it were something holy ; and in so doing you 
would incur great shame, should it become known among 
men." From this he began fearing me, and warding him- 
self from me. 

It happened also at this time that the priest who was a 
sort of archdeacon 1 of the others fell ill, and his friends 
sent for a certain Saracen diviner, who said to them : "A 
certain lean man, who neither eats, nor drinks, nor sleeps 



were made of pieces of the altar-cloth which had been used at the 
consecration of a church, and were sent by the bishops to the various 
presbyters to use in the absence of a consecrated altar. See Ducange, 
s. V. A?itimens2uin. 1 See supra, p. 205. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 217 

in a bed, is angered with him. If he can get his blessing, 
he may get well." So they understood that this referred to 
the monk, and toward the middle of the night the wife of 
the priest and the sister and the son came to the (343) 
monk, begging him to come and give him his blessing. 
They aroused us also to ask the monk. And as we asked 
him he said: "Let him alone, for he and three others who 
go also in evil ways, have formed the project to go to 
court, to obtain of Mangu Chan that you and I be driven 
out of these parts." 

Now there had been a dispute among them, for Mangu 
and his wives had sent on Easter eve four iascot and pieces 
of silk to the monk and the priests to be distributed among 
them, and the monk had kept one iascot as his share, and 
of the remaining three one was counterfeit, for it was of 
copper ; so it seemed to the priests that the monk had 
kept too large a share for himself; and it may therefore 
well have been that they had had some talk among them- 
selves, which had been repeated to the monk. 

When it was daylight I went to the priest, who had a 
very sharp pain in his side and was spitting blood, whence 
I imagined that it was an abscess. I advised him to 
recognize the Pope as the father of all Christians, which he 
at once did, vowing that if God should give him health he 
would go throw himself at the Pope's feet, and would ask in 
all good faith that the Pope should send his blessing to 
Mangu Chan. I advised him also to make restitution, if he 
had anything belonging to another. He said he had 
nothing. I spoke to him also of the sacrament of extreme 
unction. He replied : " We have not that custom, nor do 
our priests know how to do it ; ^ I beg that whatever (344) 
you do for me, you do it according as you know how to 
do.*' I told him also of confession, which they do not 

1 Extreme unction is unknown to the Nestorians ; but the Chaldeans 
have adopted it from the teaching of Rome (Badger, ii, 161). 



2l8 JOURNEY OF 

make. He spoke a few words in the ear of a priest, one of 
his associates ; after that he began to grow better, and he 
asked me to go to the monk. I went. At first the monk 
would not come ; finally, on hearing that he was better, he 
went with his cross ; and I went carrying the body of 
Christ in the box of master William, having kept it from 
Easter day at his request. Then the monk began to stamp 
upon him with his feet, and the other kissed his feet in all 
humility. Then I said to him : " It is a custom of the 
Roman Church that sick persons partake of the body of 
Christ, as a viatic and protection against all the toils of 
the enemy. Here is the body of Christ which I have kept 
from Easter day. You must confess and desire it.** Then 
he said with great faith : " I desire it with all my heart.** 
And as I was about to expose it, he said with great 
earnestness : " I believe that this is my Creator and 
Saviour, who gave me life, and will give it me again after 
death at the general resurrection." And so he received the 
body of Christ made by me, after the fashion of the Church 
of Rome. 

The monk remained with him after this, and gave him, 
while I was away, I know not what potion. The next day 
he began to suffer unto death. So taking some of their 
oil, which they say is holy, I anointed him according to the 
fashion of the Church, as he had asked me. I had not any of 
our oil, for the priests of Sartach had kept everything. And 
as we were about to repeat the prayers for the dying, and I 
wanted to be present at his death, the monk sent me word 
to go away, for if I should be present I could not enter 
(345) Mangu Chan's house till the year was up. When I 
mentioned this to his friends, they told me it . was true, 
and they besought me to leave, so as not to interfere 
with the good I could promote.^ 

^ See supra^ p. 80. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 219 

When he was dead, the monk said to me: "Care not 
about it ; I have killed him with my prayers. He was the 
only scholar, and was opposed to us. The others know 
nothing. However, all of them, Mangu Chan included, 
will come to our feet." Then he told me the above related 
answer of the diviner, which I did not believe, so I asked 
priests, friends of the deceased, if it were true. They said 
that it was ; but whether he had been told beforehand, or 
not, they did not know. 

After this I discovered that the monk had called this 
said Saracen diviner into his chapel with his wife, and had 
had dust sifted and had them divine for him by it.^ He 
had also a Ruthenian deacon with him who divined for 
him. When I had learned this, I was horrified at his 
ignorance, and I told him : " Brother, a man who is full 
of the Holy Ghost, who teaches all things, should not seek 
answers or advice from diviners ; all such things are for- 
bidden, and those who are given to them are excom- 
municated." Then he began to excuse himself, saying 
that it was not true that he sought such things. I was not, 
however, able to leave him, for I had been lodged there by 



^ Cribrari pulverem. This, apparently, is the well-known method of 
detecting spirits or devils by strewing ashes around, when their 
presence is ascertained by the appearance on the ashes of their 
footprints. Tylor {Pritn. Cult.^ ii, 197) mentions the prevalence of 
this belief in many countries, among others in England. " On St. 
Mark's eve, he says (quoting Brand, Pop. Antiq.y i, 193), ashes are to 
be sifted over the hearth, and the footprints will be seen of anyone 
who is to die within the year." This form of divination is practised 
among the Koreans to discover the fate of a person who is dying. 
They place over the bowl in which they keep the brine used with 
their food a dish on which is strewn fine ashes, and over this they 
place a sieve. As soon as a person is dead, the sieve is raised 
and the ashes examined. If traces of small human feet are seen, the 
deceased has gone to inhabit another human form ; if the lines on the 
ashes are serpentine or only fine lines, he has become a reptile or some 
crawling or creeping beast, etc. The Greeks had a method of divining 
by flour, called dXevpofiavTcia, but nothing is known about it (Bouche- 
Leclercq, Divination^ i, 182). 



220 JOURNEY OF 

order of the Chan, and I could not go elsewhere without his 
special order.^ 




\F the city of Caracarum^ you must know that, 
exclusive of the palace of the Chan, it is not as 
big as the village of Saint Denis, and the mon- 
astery of Saint Denis is ten times larger than the palace. 



^ While this monk Sergius was an especially ignorant impostor, 
the Armenian priesthood at that time and in later centuries do not 
appear to have been much better. Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. 
xcviii, 441a), says of them : " Many of their priests are given to divining, 
by the inspection of grain, and such-like methods." Chardin (ii, 186, 
viii, 116) says that the Armenians of his time were taught in their 
childhood to say Christus^ to make the sign of the cross, and to 
fast, and that this was about all their religious education. They were 
very superstitious, and practised various modes of fortune-telling. 
Tournefort (ii, 163, 164) speaks also of the deplorable ignorance of the 
Armenian clergy in his time. 

2 The name of this famous city is Mongol, Kara, "black," and 
kuren, "a camp," or properly " pailing." It was founded in 1235 ^y 
Ogodai, who called it Ordu Balik, or "the City of the Ordu," other- 
wise "the Royal City." Mohammedan authors says it took its name 
of Karakorum from the mountains to the south of it, in which the 
Orkhon had its source (d'Ohsson, ii, 64). The Chinese mention a 
range of mountains from which the Orkhon flows, called Wu-te kien 
shan (T^angshu^hV. 43b). Probably these are the same. Rashideddin 
speaks of a tribe of Utikien Uigurs living in this country (Bretschneider, 
Med. Geog., 191 ; d'Ohsson, i, 437). It would seem more probable 
that the name of Karakorum, as applied by the Persian mediaeval 
writers to these mountains, was taken from that of the city. The 
Chinese transcribed the name Ha-la ho-lin, which in time was 
abbreviated to Ho-lin, in which form the name is usually written in 
Chinese works. The determination of the exact site of this city was for 
many years a much-disputed question, but it appears to have been finally 
settled in 1889, by the Russian traveller, N. Yadrintzef. The city, 
according to him, stood on the left bank of the Orkhon river, about 
thirty miles south of its confluence with the Urtu-Tamir, in 47° 15' N. 
lat, and 102° 20' \^" E. long. The ruins cover an area of six miles in 
circumference {Proc. Roy. Geo. Soc, xii, 424). The city within the 
walls was not, however, large. Juvaini says the wall was half a league 
long, while Polo says it " was a city of some three miles in compass, 
surrounded by a strong earthen wall. And beside it was a great 
citadel, wherein is a fine palace in which the Governor resided" 
(d'Ohsson, ii, 65 ; Yule, Marco Folo^ i, 227, ii, 539). In 1256 Mangu 
removed the capital of his empire to Shang-tu or Kai-ping Fu, near the 
present Dolon nor, in S.E. Mongolia, the Kemcufu of Marco Polo (i, 26). 
As stated in a previous note, the only houses inside the city 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 221 

There are two quarters in it ; one (346) of the Saracens in 
which are the markets, and where a great many Tartars 
gather on account of the court, which is always near 
this (city), and on account of the great number of ambassa- 
dors ; the other is the quarter of the Cathayans, all of 
whom are artisans. Besides these quarters there are great 
palaces, which are for the secretaries o^ the court. There 
are there twelve idol temples of different nations, two 
mahumrrieries in which is cried the law of Machomet,^ 
and one church of Christians in the extreme end of the 
city. The city is surrounded by a mud wall and has 
iiii gates. At the eastern is sold millet and other kinds of 
grain, which, however, is rarely brought there ; at the 
western one, sheep and goats are sold ; at the southern, 
oxen and carts are sold ; at the northern, horses are sold. 
We arrived there following the court on the Sunday before 
Ascension (7th May). The next day we, the monk and 
all his household, were summoned by Bulgai, who is 
the grand secretary and judge, and all the envoys and 
foreigners who were in the habit of frequenting the monk's 
house; and we were separately called into Bulgai's presence, 
first the monk, and we after him ; and they inquired most 



were probably those of the Mohammedan and Chinese quarters, 
and the yamens. The four principal markets were, in all likeli- 
hood, outside the gates, as is the present custom in all Chinese towns. 
It was quite natural that grain, oxen and carts should be sold outside 
the eastern and southern gates, as they were brought from China and 
the cultivated districts of Manchuria. Horses and sheep were brought 
from the Kirghiz and Mongol pasture lands to the north and west. 
Juvaini says there arrived daily at Karakorum, for the use of the court 
and people, 500 cart-loads of food and drink brought from different 
parts of the empire (d'Ohsson, ii, 65 ; see also Cordier, Sur la 
position de Ho-lin ; Howorth, History^ i, pt. i, 182 ; Palladius, 
op. cit.^ 1 1 ). 

^ Due mahunimerie in quibiis clamatur lex Machometi. The word 
mahummery^ or ?nahomerie^ was in common use by writers of the time 
of the Crusades to designate a mosque. See Joinville (259), where 
occurs the expression "le maistre mahomerie." In another passage 
(389) our author speaks of the " synagogues of the Saracens." 
Clamatur refers, of course, to the calling to prayer of the fnuezzins. 



222 JOURNEY OF 

minutely whence we were, why we had come, what was 
our business. And this inquiry was made because it had been 
reported to Mangu Chan that forty Hacsasins had entered 
the city under various disguises to kill him. About this 
time the lady of whom I have spoken ^ had a relapse, and 
sent for the monk, but he was unwilling to go and said : 
" She has called back the idolaters around her ; let them 
cure her if they can. I shall go there no more." 

On the eve of the Lord's Ascension (20th May) we went 
into all the houses of Mangu Chan ; and I noticed that 
when he was about to drink, they sprinkled (347) cosmos on 
his felt idols. Then I said to the monk : " What is there 
in common between Christ and Belial ? What share has 
our Cross with these idols ? " 

Furthermore, Mangu Chan has eight brothers; three uter- 
ine, and five by the father. One of the uterine ones he sent 
to the country of the Hacsasins, whom they call Mulidet, 
and he ordered him to put them all to death. Another 
came toward Persia and has already entered, it is believed, 
the land of Turkic, and will thence send an army against 
Baldach and against Vastacius. One of the others he sent 
into Cathay, against those who do not yet obey him. His 
youngest uterine brother, Arabuccha by name, he keeps 
near him, and he holds the ordu of their mother, who was a 
Christian, and William is his slave.^ For one of his own 
brothers by the father had captured him in Hungary, in a 
city called Belgrade, where was also a Norman Bishop 
from Belevile near Rouen, with the nephew of a bishop, 

^ See supra, pp. 190, 192 ; and in/ray p. 223. 

2 Tului's sons by Siurkukteni (or Siurkukiti-beighi, as the name is 
also written) were Mangu, Kubilai, Hulagu, and Arik-Boga. By his 
other wives and concubines he is said to have had six sons (d'Ohsson, 
ii, 60, and Quatrem^re, op. cit.^ 85). Hulagu was sent against the 
Ismaelians in 1253, Kubilai commanded in China. I do not know 
who the other brother that was sent to Persia can have been. The MSS. 
all read Mulibet or Mulihet. I assume that these are purely clerica 
errors for Mulidet 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 223 

whom I saw in Caracarum.^ And he gave master 
Wilh'am to Mangu's mother, for she insisted greatly on 
having him ; and when she died, master William became 
the property of this Arabuccha, together with all the other 
things belonging to the ordu of his mother, and through him 
he became known to Mangu Chan, who after (348) the com- 
pletion of the work of which I have spoken, gave this 
master C iascot^ that is a thousand marks. 

The day before Ascension (20th May), Mangu Chan said 
he wanted to visit his mother's ordu, for it was quite 
near;2 and the monk said he wanted to go with him and 
bestow his blessing on the soul of his mother. The Chan 
gave his approval. In the evening of Ascension day (21st 
May) the before-mentioned lady (i.e., Cota) grew a great 
deal worse, so that the chief of the diviners sent to the monk 
ordering him not to beat his board. The next day, when 
we left with all the court, the ordu of this lady remained 
behind. When we came to the place for pitching camp, the 
monk received orders to go farther away from the court 
than he was wont, which he did. Then Arabuccha came 
out to meet his brother the Chan, and the monk and we 
perceiving that he would have to pass beside us, advanced 
toward him with the cross. He recognized us, for he had 
been previously to our oratory, and held out his hand and 
made the sign of the cross at us like a bishop. Then 



1 Belgrade on the Danube, the present capital of Servia. The 
Mongols overran this country during their second expedition to 
Europe. William Buchier was probably captured about 1242. There 
is a Belleville-sur-mer in the present department of the Seine Infdrieure, 
of which Rouen is the capital. This nephew of the Norman bishop 
may be the Englishman called Basil, referred to on p. 212. 

2 There were a number of palaces near Karakorum where the 
emperors used to pass much of their time, among others Kerchagan, 
a palace built in Persian style under Ogodai's reign, and distant from 
it a day's ride. Ormektua (the Sira Ordu of Pian de Carpine), where 
the elections of emperors were held, was also less than a day's ride 
from the capital and the banks of Lake Keushe, another favourite 
resort, were only somejfour days off (d'Ohsson, ii, 84). 



224 JOURNEY OF 

the monk got on a horse and followed him, carrying some 
fruit with him. He (Arabuccha) alighted before the ordu of 
his brother, to wait for him until he should return from the 
chase. Then the monk got down too, and offered him his 
fruit, which he accepted. And there were seated beside 
him two men of high rank at the court of the Chan, and 
they were Saracens. Arabuccha, who knew of the enmity 
which exists between the Christians and Saracens, asked 
the monk if he knew these Saracens. He replied: "I know 
that they are dogs ; why have you got them beside 
you ? " " Why," the latter asked, " do you (349) insult us, 
when we have said nothing to you ? " The monk said to 
them : " It is true what I say, you and your Machomet 
are low hounds." Then they began to blaspheme 
against Christ, but Arabuccha stopped them saying : 
*' You must not speak so, for we know that the Mbssiah 
is God." In that very same hour there suddenly arose 
such a violent wind throughout the whole country, that 
it seemed as if devils were running through it ; and after 
a little while there came reports that that lady (Cota) was 
dead. 

The next day (22nd May) the Chan went back to his 
court (at Caracarum) by another way than that by which 
he had come ; for it is one of their superstitions never to 
come back by the same road by which they go. And 
furthermore, wherever he sets his camp, after his departure 
no one may pass through the place where he has been, 
neither on 'horseback nor on foot, so long as there are any 
traces of the fire which has been made there. 

That day some Saracens joined the monk on the road, 
provoking and disputing with him ; and they, having the 
better of him, and he not knowing how else to defend 
his arguments, wanted to strike them with the whip he 
had in his hand. He behaved so that his words and 
actions were reported to the court, and orders were 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 225 

given us to get down (to camp) with the other a^mbas^- 
dors, and not in front of the court as we were in the habit 
of doing. 




(3SO) .. 

HAD been constantly hoping that the king of 
Hermenia would come.^ Moreover, there had 
arrived about Easter a person from Bolat, where 
are those Germans, whom I had nearly gone there to see,^ 
and he had told me that a German priest was about 
coming to court ; for these reasons 1 did not make any 
inquiries of Mangu about our remaining or leaving, though 
he had only given us permission in the first place to stay 
there two months, and four months had already gone by, 
not to say five. For these things took place about the end 
of May, and we had been there during the whole of 
January, February, March, April, and May. Not hearing, 
however, any news of the king (of Hermenia) or of this 
priest, and fearing lest we be obliged to go back in winter, 
the severity of which we had experienced, I had inquiry 
made of Mangu Chan what he wanted to do with us, for 
we would willingly remain there permanently, if it pleased 
him ; if, however, we must go back, it would be less trying 
for us to do so in summer than in winter. He at once 
sent me word not to absent myself, for he wanted to 
speak to me; he would send for the son of master 



^ Heythum I., King of Little Armenia, left his capital, Sis in Cilicia, 
for the camp of Mangu in 1254. He travelled by way of Sartach's 
and Batu's camps, thence through the Kara-Khitai and Naiman 
countries to Mangu's camp, near Karakorum, which he reached on the 
13th September, 1254. He started on his return journey on the ist 
November of the same year, and arrived in Little Armenia in eight 
months, i.e., in July, 1255. The Armenian narrative of his journey has 
been translated by Klaproth {Journ. Asiat., xii., 463 et seg.), and by 
Dulaurier {/ourn. Asiat.^ v*' serie, xi, 273, et seq.). A valuable abstract 
IS also given by Bretschneider {Med. U'eog.^ 297-302). 

^ See j«^r«, pp. 436-7. 



226 JOURNEY OF 

William, for my dragoman was not competent. He who 
was speaking with me was a Saracen, and had been an 
envoy to Vastacius. And he, having been bribed with 
presents, had advised Vastacius to send ambassadors to 
Mangu Chan, and that in the meanwhile time would pass ; 
for Vastacius believed that they (/>., the Mongols) were 
about to invade his country at once. He sent, and 
when he had come to know them, he heeded them little, 
nor did he make a peace with them, nor have they yet 
entered his country ; nor could they do so, so long as he 
dares defend himself. For they have never conquered any 
country by force of arms, but only by deceit ; and it is 
because men make peace with them, that they work their 
ruin under cover of this peace. Then (this Saracen) inquired 
a great deal (351) about the Pope and the king of the French, 
and concerning the roads leading to them. The monk, hear- 
ing this, cautioned me, unobserved, not to answer him, for he 
wanted to get himself sent as ambassador ; so I was silent, 
and would answer him nothing. And he spoke to me I 
know not what injurious terms, for which the Nestorian 
priests wished to bring a charge against him, and he would 
have been put to death or soundly beaten ; but I would not 
have it. 

The next day, which was Sunday before Pentecost (24th 
May), they took me to court ; and the grand secretaries 01 
the court came to me, and one was the Moal who handed 
the Chan his cup, and the others were Saracens, and they 
inquired on the part of the Chan why I had come. Then 
I repeated what has previously been said ; how I had come 
to Sartach, and from Sartach to Baatu, and how Baatu had 
sent me thither ; then I said to him : " I have nothing to 
say from the part of any man. (This he must have known 
from what Baatu had written to him.) I have only to 
speak the words of God, if he wishes to hear them." They 
interrupted me, asking what words of God I wished to 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 22? 

speak) thinking that I wanted to foretell som^., piece bf 
good fortune to him, as many^others do. I replied to them : 
" If you want me to speak the words of God to him, pro- 
cure for me the interpreter." They said : " We have sent 
for him ; but speak (now) through this one as well as you 
can; we understand you very well." And they urged me 
greatly that I should speak. So I said : " Of him unto 
whom much has been given much shall be required. And 
furthermore, of him to whom much (352) has been given 
much love is required. By these words of God I teach 
Mangu, for God hath given him great power, and the riches 
which he has were not given him by the idols of the 
Tuins, but by Almighty God, who made heaven and earth, 
in whose hand are all kingdoms, and who removes it (/>., 
power) from one nation to another on account of the sins 
of men. So if he shall love Him, it shall be well with him ; 
if otherwise, he must know that God will require all things 
of him to the last farthing." Then one of the Saracens 
said : " Is there anyone who does not love God ? " I 
replied: "God says: *If one love me, he keepeth my 
commandments ; and he who loveth me not keepeth not 
my commandments.'^ So he who keepeth not the com- 
mandments of God loveth not God." Then he said : 
" Have you been to heaven, that you know the command- 
ments of God ? " " No," I replied, " but He has given 
them from heaven to holy men, and finally He descended 
from heaven to teach us, and we have them in the Scrip- 
tures, and we see by men's works when they keep them or 
not." Then he said : " Do you wish, then, to say that 
Mangu Chan does not keep the commandments of God ? " 
I said to him : " Let the dragoman come, as you have said, 
and I will, in the presence of Mangu, if it pleases him, 
recite the commandments of God, and he shall judge for 

^ Gospel according to J Qhn^ xiv., 15-24 (Vulgate). 

Q2 



228 JOURNEY OF 

himself whether he keeps them or nol."* Then tfiey wait 
away, and told him that I had said that lie was an idofater, 
or Tuin, and that he did not keep God's commandments. 

The next day (25th May) (the Chan) sent his^ secretaries 
to me, who said : " Our lord sends us to you to say -that you 
are here Christians, Saracens and Tuins. And each of you 
says that his dofctrine is the best, and his writings — ^that is, 
books — the truest. So he wishes that you shall all meet 
together, and make a comparison, each one writing down 
his precepts, so that he himself may be able to know the 
truth." Then I said : " Blessed be God, (353) who ^ut this 
in the Chan's heart. But our Scriptures tell us, the servant 
of God should not dispute, but should show mildness to 
all ; so I am ready, without disputation or contention, to 
give reason for the faith and hope of the Christians, to the 
best of my ability." They wrote down my words, and 
carried them back to him. Then it was told the Nestorians 
that they should look to themselves, and write down what 
they wished to say, and likewise to the Saracens, and in 
the same way to the Tuins. 

The next day (26th May) he again sent secretaries, who 
said : "Mangu Chan wishes to know why you have come to 
these parts." I replied to them: "He must know it by 
Baatu's letters." Then they said : ** The letters pf Baatii 
have been lost, and he has forgotten what Baatu wrote 
to him ; so he would know from you." Then fueling safer 
I said : " It is the duty of our faith to preach the Gospel to 
all men. So when I heard of the fame of the Moal people, I 
was desirous of coming to them ; and while this desire was on 
me, we heard that Sartach was a Christian. So I turned 
my footsteps toward him. And the lord king of the French 
sent him letters containing kindly words, and among other 
things he bore witness to what kind of men we 'were, and 
requested that he would allow us to remain among the men 
of Moal. Then he {i.e., Sartach) sent us to Baatu, and 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 229 

Baatu sent us to Mangu Chan ; so we have begged him, 
and do again beg him, to permit us to remain/' 

They wrote all these things down, and carried it back to 
him on the morrow. 

.Then he again sent them to me, saying: "The Chan 
knows well "that you have no tnission to him, but that 
you have come to pray for him, like other righteous priests ; 
but he would know if ever any ambassadors from you have 
come to us, or any of ours gone to you." Then I told 
theni all about David and Friar Andrew, and they, putting 
it all down in writings reported it back to him. 

Then he' again sent them to me, saying : (354)^* You have 
stayed here a long while "; (the Chan) wishes you to go back to 
your own country, and he has inquired whether you will take 
an ambassador of his with you." I replied to them : " I would ^ 
not dare take his envoys outside his own dominions, for 
there is a hostile country between us and you, and seas and 
mountains ; and I am but a poor monk ; so I would not 
venture to take them under my leadership."^ And they, 
having written it all down, went back. 

Pentecost eve came (30th May). The Nestorians had 
\yritten a whole chronicle from the creation of the world 
to the Passion of Christ ; and passing over the Passion, 
they had touched on the Ascension and the resurrection of 
the dead and on the coming to judgement, and in it there 
were some censurable statements, which I pointed out to 
them. As for us, we simply wrote out the symbol of the 
mass, " Credo in unutn Deum!' Then I asked them how they 
wished to proceed. They said they would discuss in the 
first place with the Saracens. I showed them that that was 
not a good plan, for the Saracens agreed with us in saying 



^ Conf. supra, p. 29, the reasons given by Friar John of Plan de 
Carpine for not taking Mongol envoys back with him. Rubruck may 
probably have thought the same, especially in view of what he had 
been told by Wilfiam Buchier's adopted son {supra, p» 180). - 



230 JOURNEY OF 

that there is one God : " So you have (in them) a help 
against the Tuihs." They agreed with this. Then I asked 
them if they knew how idolatry had arisen in the world, 
and they were in ignorance of it. Then I told them, and 
they said : "Tell them these things, then let us speak, for 
it is a difficult matter to talk through an interpreter." 
I said to them : " Try how you will manage against them ; 
I will take the part of the Tuins, and you will maintain 
that of the Christians. We will suppose I belong to that 
sect, because they say that God is not; now prove that God 
is." For there is a sect there which says that whatever 
spirit {animd) and whatever virtue is in anything, is the 
God of that thing, and that God exists not (355) otherwise. 
Then the Nestorians were unable to prove anything, but 
only to tell what the Scriptures tell. I said : " They do not 
believe in the Scriptures ; you tell me one thing, and they 
tell another." Then I advised them to let me in the first 
place meet them, so that, if I should be confounded, they 
would still have a chance to speak ; if they should be con- 
founded, I should not be able to get a hearing after that. 
They agreed to this. 

We were assembled then on Pentecost eve at our oratory, 
and Mangu Chan sent three secretaries who were to be 
umpires, one a Christian, one a Saracen, and one a Tuin ; 
and it was published aloud : " This is the order of Mangu, 
and let no one dare say that the commandment of God 
differs from it. And he orders that no one shall dare 
wrangle or insult any other, or make any noise by which 
this business shall be interfered with, on penalty of his 
head." Then all were silent. And there was a great con- 
course of people there ; for each side had called thither 
the most learned of its people, and many others had also 
assembled. 

Then the Christians put me in the middle, telling the 
Tuins to speak with me. Then they — and there was a 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 23 1 

great congregation of them — began to murmur against 
Mangu Chan, for no other Chan had ever attempted to pry 
into their secrets. Then they opposed to me one who had 
come from Cathay, and who had his interpreter ; and I had 
the son of master William, who began by (356) saying to 
me : " Friend, if you think you are going to be hushed up 
{conclusus\ look for a more learned one than yourself" 
I remained silent. Then (the Tuin) inquired by what I 
wished to begin the discussion, by the subject how the 
world was made, or what becomes of the soul after death. 
I replied to him : "Friend, this should not be the beginning 
of our talk. All things proceed from God ; He is the 
fountain-head of all things ; so we must first speak of God, 
of whom you think differently from us, and Mangu Chan 
wishes to know who holds the better belief" The umpires 
decided that this was right. 

He wished to begin with these questions, as they con- 
sider them to be the weightest ; for they all hold this 
heresy of the Manichaeans, that one half of things is evil, 
and the other half good, and that there are two (elemental) 
principles ;^ and, as to souls, they believe that all pass from 
one body into another. Thus a most learned priest among 
the Nestorians questioned ine (once) concerning the souls 
of animals,' whether they could escape to any place where, 
after death, they would not be forced to labour. In confir- 



^ The whole Manichaean system is one of uncompromising dualism. 
Mani co-ordinates good with light, evil with darkness — redemption is 
the physical process of freeing the element light from the darkness. He 
distinguishes two elemental beings, light (Friar William sa> s " good ") 
and darkness (evil). He did not profess a doctrine of transmigration 
(Harnack, Ency. Brit., xv, 483, 484). If Friar William's adversary 
was, as I think he was, an Uigur, this statement of their creed is 
additionally interesting, as the discussion shows it was an extraordinary 
jumble of Manichaeism, and of various forms of Buddhism, with 
perhaps a slight infusion of Chinese philosophical notions. Our author 
says his adversary came from China, not that he was Chinese. 
Infra^ p. 234, he says, however, that the Uigurs (perhaps only some of 
them) believed in one God. 



232 JOURNEY OF 

mation furthermore^ of this error; as I wa^ toW by master 
William, there had been brought from Cathay a boy who, 
from the size, of his body, was not more than twelve years 
old, but who was capable of all forms of reasoning, and 
who said of himself that he had been incarnated three 
times ; he knew how to read and write.^ 

So I said to the Tuin : "We believe firmly in our 
hearts and we confess with our mouths that God is, 
and that there is only one God, one in perfect unity. 
What do you believe ? " He said : " Fools say that 
there is only one God, but the wise say that there are 



^ Friar William is the first western traveller to mention incarnate 
lamas, or, as it is now the custom to call them from the Chinese name 
{huo Fo) " Living Buddhas," a peculiar feature of Buddhist develop- 
ment only found in the religion of Tibet. The system of reincarnation 
of saints, or Bodhisattwas, founded on a perfectly sound Buddhist 
theory, assumed its peculiar Tibetan form, not earlier, I am inclined 
to think, than the eleventh century, with the teaching in Tibet of 
Atisha, or his disciple Bromton, but it never took any very great 
extension among the old lamslist school or Nyima sect. It was only 
after the great lama reformer Tsonghapa had founded in the early 
part of the fourteenth century the Gelug, or "yellow-capped sect" 
that Living Biiddhas became numerous, the two principal ones being 
the Tale lama ;md the Pan-chen lama. The first Tale lama was 
born in A.D. 1 391, the first Pan-chen lama in a.d. 1567. The third 
great incarnate lama is the Taranata lama, or Jebtsun damba lama 
of Urga in Mongolia; the first appearance of this incarnation was in 
the sixteenth century. There are at present about 160 incarnate 
lamas in Mongolia, Tibet, and China, all of them bearing the Mongol 
title oi khubiikhan {^rononnc^d hubiihan) (Sarat Chandra "D^ls, Indian 
Pandits^ 62, 76; Sheng-wu-chi^ v, 19; R ockhi 11, y^«r. Roy. Asiat. 
Soc.^ 1 89 1, 279, 285, et seq. ; and Land of the Lamas^ 290). 

When Rubruck was in Mongolia, Tibetan Buddhism had just made 
its appearance in that country. Saskya Pandita, the first Tibetan lama 
of any prominence to go thither, visited Kuyuk Khan in 1247 ; but 
it was not until the Emperor Kubilai's reign that lamaism was firmly 
established among the Mongols. Mangu, it is true, appointed (probably 
in 1 247 or 1 252) a Tibetan lama named Namo, chief of his religion in the 
empire, just as he appointed a Chinese hoshang called K'ai-yuan, head 
of ecclesiastical affairs in China ; but it was Kubilai who gave pre- 
eminence to the lamas. Our traveller states that the Living Buddha 
that Master William saw had come from China some years before. 
It maybe that he came with Saskya Pandita; but I am rather inclined 
to believe that he came from Tangut, the present north-western Kan-su, 
where lamaism had been firmly established long before by the Tibetans. 
The remark that he was in his third reincarnation is also very inter- 
esting (see Howorth, History, i, Pt. i, 188, 504). 



FRIAR WILLIAM Of RUBRUClt. 233 

many. 'Are there not great lords in your country, and is 
not this Mangu Chan a greater lord ? So it is of them, for 
they are diiffererit in dififerent regions." 

I said to him: "You choose a poor example, in which 
there is no comparison between man and God ; according 
to that (357) every mighty man can call himself god in his 
own country." And as I was about to destroy the com- 
parison, he interrupted me, asking : "Of what nature is 
your God, of whom you say that there is none other ? " 
I replied : "Our God, besides whom there is none other, 
is omnipotent, and therefore requires the aid of none 
other, while all of us require His aid. It is not thus with 
man. No man can do everything, and so there must be 
several lords in the world, for no one can do all things. 
So likewise He knows all things, and therefore requires 
no councillor, for all wisdom comes of Him. Likewii^e, He 
is *th6 supreme good, and wants not of our goods. But we 
live, move, and are in Him. Such is our God, and one 
must not consider Him otherwise." 

" It is not so," he replied. " Though there is one (God) 
in the sky who is above all others, and of whose origin we 
are still ignorant,^ there are ten others under htm, and 
under these latter is another lower one. On the earth 
they are in infinite number." And as he wanted to spin 
(/^jTi^r^) some other.yarns, I asked him of this highest god. 
whether he believed he was omnipotent, or whether (he 
believed this) of some other god. Fearing to answer, he 
asked : " If your God is as you say, why does he make the 
half of things evil ?"2 '* That is not true," I said. " He who 
makes evil is not God. All things that are, are good." 
At this all the Tuins were astonished, and they wrote it 

^ Cujus generationem adhuc ignOrafnus. This is a purely Buddhist 
theory, refercipg. Intake it, lot-he primordial or Adhibuddha, and the 
evolved Dhyanibuddhas, Bodhisattwas, etc. 

^ A Manichaean theory, s€6 supra^ p. 231: ' "' 



^34 lODRNfiY OF 

down as false or impossible. Then he asked : " Whence 
then comes evil ? " " You put your question badly," I 
said. " You should in the first place inquire what is evil, 
before you ask whence it comes. But let us go back to 
the first question, whether you believe that any god is 
omnipotent ; after that I will answer all you may wish to 
ask me." 

(358) He sat for a long time without replying, so that it 
became necessary for the secretaries who were listening on 
the part of the Chan to tell him to reply. Finally he 
answered that no god was omnipotent. With that the 
Saracens burst out into a loud laugh. When silence was 
restored, I said : " Then no one of your gods can save you 
you from every peril, for occasions may arise in which 
he has no power. Furthermore, no one can serve two 
masters : how can you serve so many gods in heaven 
and earth?" The audience told him to answer, but he 
remained speechless. And as I wanted to explain the 
unity of the divine essence and the Trinity to the whole 
audience, the Nestorians of the country said to me that it 
sufficed, for they wanted to talk. I gave in to them, but 
when they wanted to argue with the Saracens, they 
answered them : " We concede your religion is true, and 
that everything is true that is in the Gospel: so we do 
not want to argue any point with you." And they con- 
fessed that in all their prayers they besought God to grant 
them to die as Christians die. 

There was present there an old priest of the lugurs, who 
say there is one god, though they make idols ; they (/>., 
the Nestorians) spoke at great length with him, telling him 
of all things down to the coming of the Antichrist into the 
world, and by comparisons demonstrating the Trinity to 
him and the Saracens. They all listened without making 
any contradiction, but no one said : " I believe ; I want to 
become a Christian." When this was over (359), the 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF ktJBRUCIt. 235 

Nestorians as well as the Saracens sang with a loud voice, 
while the Tuins kept silence, and after that they all drank 
deeply. 




JN Pentecost day (31st May) Mangu Chan called me 
before him, and also the Tuin with whom I had 
discussed ; but before I went in, the interpreter, 
master William's son, said to me that we should have to go 
back to our country, and that I must not raise any objec- 
tion, for he understood that it was a settled matter. When 
I came before the Chan, I had to bend the knees, and 
so did the Tuin beside me, with his interpreter. Then 
(the Chan) said to me : " Tell me the truth, whether you 
said the other day, when I sent my secretaries to you, 
that I was a Tuin.*' I replied : " My lord, I did not 
say that ; I will tell you what I said, if it pleases you." 
Then I repeated to him what I had said, and he replied : 
** I thought full well that you did not say it, for you 
should not have said it ; but your interpreter translated 
badly." And he held out toward me the staff on which 
he leaned, saying : " Fear not." And I, smiling, said in 
an undertone : " If I had been afraid, I should not have 
come here." He asked the interpreter what I had said, 
and he repeated it to him. After that he began confiding 
to me his creed : " We Moal," he said, ** believe that 
there is only one God, by whom we live and by whom 
we die, and for whom we have an upright heart."'' 
Then I said : " May it be so, for without His grace this 
cannot be." He asked what I had said ; the interpreter 
told him. Then he added : " But as God gives us the 
different fingers of the hand, so he gives to men divers 
ways. God gives you the Scriptures, and you Christians 
keep them not. You do not find (in them, for example) 
that one should find fault with another, do you ? " " No, 



236 : JOURNEY OF 

my lord," I said ; " but I told you from the first that I did 
not want to wrangle (360) with anyone/* *' I do not intend 
to say it," he said, " for you. Likewise you do not find 
that a man should depart from justice for money." "No, 
my lord," I said. " And truly I came not to these parts to 
obtain money; on the contrary I have refused what has 
been offered me." And there was a secretary present, who 
bore witness that I had refused an iascot and silken cloths. 
" I do not say it," he said, " for yoii. God gave you there- 
fore the Scriptures, and you do not keep them ; He gave us 
diviners^ we do what they tell us, and we live in peace."^ 



^ The Pien wet lu, a Chinese Buddhist work, puts in the mouth of 
Mangu the following opinion of the various religious sects of his time : — 
" The Hsien-sheng (Taoists) say that their teaching is the highest ; 
the Hsiu-ts^ai (Literati) say that Confucianism is the first of doctrines ; 
the lieh'hsieh (here meaning Christians), who honour the Messiah, 
believe in celestial life ; and the Damishmends (MoUahs) pray to 
heaven and thank it for its blessings. If all these religions are care- 
fully examined, one will see that no one of them can be compared 
with Buddhism." Saying this, the Khan held up his hand to make a 
comparison, and said : ** As the five fingers are as regards the palm 
of the hand from which they project, so are all other religions as com- 
pared to Buddhism" (Dev^ria, Notes d^dpigraphie^ 46). 

The Russian archbishop Peter, in 1245, stated to the Council of 
Lyons regarding the Mongols' religion that "every morning they raised 
their hands to heaven, adoring the Creator." Matth. Paris {pp. cit.^ iv, 
388) and Pian de Carpine (618 ^/ seq.) remark : '* They believe in one 
God, who they say is the maker of all things visible and invisible ; 
and they believe that He is the author of all blessings in this world as 
well as of punishments ; but they do not worship Him with prayers or 
songs of praise or any ceremony whatever." Marco Polo (i, 248) says 
of them : "They say there is a Most High God of Heaven, whom 
they worship daily with thurible and incense, but they pray to him 
only for health of body." Palladius {pp. cit.^ 14), commenting on this 
passage, says : " The God of Heaven is evidently the Tengri of the 
Mongols, the highest object of their worship. They used to apply 
to it the epithet of Dere^ ' Supreme,' and Munke, * Eternal.* The 
affinity of the Shaman idea of heaven with that of the Chinese is 
indubitable. It does not appear, however, that Shamanism admits 
the idea of a personified and intelligent supreme being, similar to that 
existing in China, where this idea has inspired some thinkers, and 
raised their minds to high spiritual conceptions." RadlofF {Aus 
Sibirien^ ii, 3), speaking of the faith of the Shamans, says they teach 
that " before the earth and heaven were made, all was water ; the earth 
was not, heaven existed not, the sun and moon were not. Then 
Tengere Kaira Khan, the highest of gods, the beginning of all crea- 



FRIAR WILLlAlil OF RUBRUCK. 237 

He drank four times^ I believe, before he finished saying 
all this* -And I was listening attentively for him to say 
something else of his creed, when he began talking of my 
return journey, saying : "You have stayed here a long 
while ; I wish you to go back; You have said that yoii 
would not dare take my ambassadors with you ; will 
you take my words, or my letters?" And from that 
time I never found the opportunity nor the Ume when I 
could show him the Catholic Faith. For no one can 
speak in his presence but so much as he wishes, unless 
he be an ambassador; for an ambassador can say what- 
ever he chooses, and they always ask if he wishes to 
say something more. As for me, it was not allowed 
me to speak more ; I had only to listen to him, and 
reply to his questions. So I answered him that he should 
make me understand his words, and have them put down 
in writing, for I would willingly take them as best I could. 
Then he asked me if I wanted gold or silver or costly 
clothing. I said : " We take no such things ; but we have 
no travelling money, and without your assistance we can- 
not get out of your country." He (361) said : " I will have 
you given all you require while in my possessions ; do you 
Avant anything more ? " I replied : " That suffices us." 
Then he asked : " How fardo you wish to be. taken ? " I 
said : " Our power extends to the country of the king of 
•Hermenia ; if we were (escorted) that far, it would suffice 
me." He answered : " I will have you taken that far ; after 
that look out for yourself" And he added : " There are 
two eyes in the head ; but though they be two, they have 

tion, the Father and the Mother of the human race, created in the first 
place a being resembling himself, and called him Kishi^ or Man." 

As to the early Mongols' conception of a future life, the only writer 
who has referred to the subject is Plan de Carpine (625). He there 
says : "As to life eternal and perpetual damnation they know nothing ; 
they believe, however, that after this they will live in another world, 
and that there they will increase their flocks, eat and drink, and do 
everything else that is done by livmg beings in this world." 



/ 



238 JOURNEY OF 

but one sight, and when one turns its glance there goes 
the other. You came from Baatu, and so you must go 
back by way of him." When he had said this, I asked per- 
mission of him to speak. " Speak," he said. Then I said : 
" My lord, we are not men of war. We wish that those 
should have dominion over the world who rule it most 
justly, in accordance with the will of God. Our office is to 
teach men to Mve after the will of God. For that we have 
come here, and willingly would we remain here if it pleased 
you. Since it pleases you that we go back, that must 
then be. I will go back, and I will carry your letters as 
well as I can, as you have ordered. I would ask of your 
majesty that since I shall carry your letters, I may also 
come back to you with your consent ; principally because 
you have poor slaves at Bolat, who are of our tongue,^ and 
who have no priest to teach them and their sons their 
religion, and willingly would I remain with them." Then 
he replied : ** If your masters should send you back to m6 
(you will be welcome)." I said : " My lord, I know not 
the will of my masters ; but I have their permission to go 
wherever I wish, where it is needful to preach the word of 
God ; and it seems to me that it is very needful in these 
parts ; so (362) whether he sends back envoys by us or not, 
if it pleases you I will come back." 

Then he remained silent and sat for a long time as if 
thinking, and the interpreter told me to speak no more. 
So I waited anxiously for what he would reply. Finally 
he said : " You have a long way to go, comfort yourself 
with food, so that you may reach your country in good 
health." And he had me given to drink, and then I went 



^ Qui sunt lin^ue nostre. It has been supposed from this remark 
that Rubruck's language was Dutch, Flemish, or German. I fancy he 
said what he did to Mangu, knowing that he had not a very clear or 
correct knowledge of the different languages spoken in Western 
Europe, and wished him only to understand that he was of the same 
race as these slaves. On Bolat, see supra^ p. 138. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 239 

out from before him, and after that I went not back again. 
If I had had the power to work by signs and wonders like 
Moses, perhaps he would have humbled himself,^ 




tHEIR diviners ^re, as (Mangu Chan) confessed to 
me, their priests ;^ and whatever they say must 
be done is executed without delay. I will tell 
you of their office, as well as I could learn about it 
from master William and others who used to speak truth- 
fully to me. They are very numerous, and always have a 
captain, like a pontiff, who always places his dwelling 
before the principal house of Mangu Chan, at about a 
stone's throw from it. Under his custody are, as I have 
previously said, the carts on which the idols are carried. 
The others come after the ordu in positions assigned to 
them ; and there come to them from various parts of the 
world people who believe in their art. Some among them 

* Haithon (//«/. Orient., 38, 39) says that Mangu, his whole family, 
and a number of the great personages of his court, were actually 
baptised by the Armenian bishop who accompanied Heythum I. to 
Mangu's court in 1253. The writer's pardonable desire to magnify in 
the eyes of posterity the influence of this member of his family with 
the Mongol emperor is probably the only ground for this assertion. 

* Friar William (259) has given us the native name of these 
diviners, cham, which he wrongly states is the same as that borne 
by their sovereigns. The word Kam has always been used by 
all peoples of the Turki and Tartar races to designate their doctors, 
quacks and magicians, the " medicine-men " of the American Indians. 
It occurs in this sense in the Kudatku Bilik, the earliest monument of 
Turkish literature, dating from a.d. 1069, The Beltire Tartars still 
have their Kamen, those of Kachinzi their Kamnoe, the Kirghiz their 
Kamtscha, and the Manchus their •S^/atw^j, whence we derive our word 
Shaman (Pallas, Voyages, i 620, iii, 433, iv, 509, 579 ; Radloff, Aus 
Siberien, ii, 67 ; Hyacinthe, Chamanisme, 289, et seq.). Armenian 
chronicles of the thirteenth century attribute to the Mongol women 
great powers as witches. " Their women, they say, T^ewitched every- 
thing. It is only after the decision of their sorcerers and magicians, 
and after they have made their oracles, that they start on their 
marches" (Dulaurier, op. cit., 250). The knowledge of astronomy 
which our traveller says the Shamans at the Mongol court possessed, 
was unusual ; it was probably gained from the Chinese. 



240 JOURNEY 01^ 

know something of astronomy, particnlarly the chief, and 
they predict to them the eclipses of the sun and moon ; 
and when one is about to take^ place all the people lay in 
their food, for they must not go out of the door of their 
dwelling. And while the eclipse is taking place, they sound 
drums and instruments, and make a great noise and 
clamour. After the eclipse is over, they give themselves 
to drinking and feasting, and make great jollity. They 
predict lucky and unlucky days for the undertaking of 
all affairs ; and so it is that they never assemble an army 
nor begin a war without their, assent jn363), and long since 
(the Moal) would have gone back to Hungary, but the 
diviners will not allow it.^ 

All things which are sent to the court they take between 
fires, and for this they retain a certain portion of them. 
They also cleanse all the bedding of deceased persons by 
taking them between fires. For when anyone dies, they 
put aside all that belongs to him, and they are not 
allowed to the other people of the ordu until they have 
been purified by fires. This I saw in connection with the 
ordu of that lady who died while wc were there. On 
account of this (custom) there was a double reason why 
Friar Andrew and his companion should have gone between 
fires ; they bore presents, and they were destined for one 
who was already dead, Keu Chan. Nothing of the sort 
was required of me, because I brought nothing. If any 
animal or any other thing falls to the ground while passing 
between the fires, it is theirs.^ 



* The belief that eclipses are brought about by a dragon or some 
other monster attempting to swallow the sun or moon, is general over 
most of Asia, and in many other parts of the world. The Mongols, 
Chinese, and Tibetans of the present day, believe that the dragon can 
be driven away, and the calamity averted, by making a great noise. 

'^ The earliest mention of this method of purifying among Asiatics 
is found in Menander's account of Zemarchus' mission to the Turks in 
A.D. 569 (see Menander, 227, and Yule, Cathay^ clxiii). in the 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 24 1 

On the ninth day of the month of May, they get together 
all the white horses of the herds, and consecrate them.^ 



seventh century we hear of its prevalence in Japan, where it was 
customary for a newly-married woman to straddle over {J^ua) fire be- 
fore entering her husband's house (Ma Tuan-lin, bk. 324, 15). Pian de 
Carpine (627) says of the Mongols : " They believe that everything is 
purified by fire ; so when there come to them ambassadors, or princes 
or other persons, they and the presents they bear must pass between 
fires, so that they shall be purified, lest otherwise they should do 
some bewitching or bring some poison or some evil. Likewise, if 
fire falls from heaven on the flocks or men, which happens frequently, 
or if something of the kind befalls them which they deem unlucky, 
they must in like way dispel it by incantations. In fact, nearly all 
their hope is in such things." He describes (632) the method of 
purifying by fire as follows : " They make two fires, and place two 
spears beside the fires, and a cord across the top of the spears, and on 
this cord they tie bits of buckeram ; and underneath the cord and the 
rags, and between the two fires, men, beasts, and tents must pass. 
And there are two women, one on one side, the other on the other, 
who sprinkle water and sing charms ; and if any cart breaks down 
while passing through here, or anything falls to the ground, the 
sorcerers take it " (see also V. M. Mikhailov, Joum, Anthrop. Inst., 
xxiv, 89 ; E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i> 85 ; Gombojew, op, cit., 
661, and supra, pp. 9 and 35). 

Of the other superstitions of the early Mongols, Pian de Carpine 
(624) says : " Though as to justice and wrong doings they have no law, 
nevertheless they have certain traditions handed down to them from 
their forefathers, which establish certain things as wrong doings. One is, 
to put a knife in the fire, or to touch the fire in any way with a knife ; 
or to take meat out of the kettle with a knife. Another is to chop 
wood with an axe near the fire, for they think the head of the fire 
would be taken off by so doing {quod sic auferri debeat caput igni). 
Likewise, to lean on a whip used to strike a horse (for they use not spurs). 
So likewise to touch arrows with a whip ; to catch or kill young birds ; 
to strike a horse with a bridle ; to break a bone on another ; to spill 
on the ground milk or any other drink or food ; to urinate in a tent ; 
and if this done voluntarily, the person is put to death, but if otherwise 
he must pay the diviner a large sum of money for purifying them, 
and making the tent and all of them pass between two fires. And 
before the tent has thus been purified, no one dares enter it or lake 
anything out of it. Likewise, if one takes a piece in his mouth and 
cannot chew it and spits it out, they make a hole underneath the tent, 
take him out by it and at once put him to death " (see Gombojew, 
653, and conf. Vambery, Sketches of Central Asia, 292 ; and E. B. 
Tylor, Early History, 277). 

^ Marco Polo (i, 291) refers to this feast, which in his time was cele- 
brated on the 28th of August. See also Yule's remarks in Marco Polo 
(i, 300). Pallas ( Voyages, iv, 579) says : " The most solemn feast of 
the Tartars of Kachinzi and other idolatrous Tartars is the Jun or 
spring feast, in the month of June, which they call on that account 
U lu-shilker-ai. . . . After the first (partial and private) feasts, 
several Ulus meet together for a public sacrifice. ... In the public 



242 JOURNEY OF 

And the Christian priests are obliged to come to this with 
their censer. Then they sprinkle hew cosmos on the ground 
and hold a great feast on that day, for they consider that 
they then first drink new cosmos^ just as in some places 
among us is done with wine (364) at the feast of Bartholo- 
mew or Syxtus, and with fruit at the feast of James and 
Christopher. 

They (/.^., the Kam) are also called in when a child is 
born, to tell its fortune ;^ and when anyone sickens they 
are called, and they repeat their incantations, and tell 
whether it is a natural malady or one resulting from 
witchcraft. And in this connexion that woman of Metz, of 
whom I have spoken, told me a most remarkable thing. 

Once some valuable furs were presented, which were to 
be deposited in the ordu of her mistress, who was a Chris- 
tian, as I have previously said ; and the diviners carried 
them between fires, and took of them more than they should 
have done. A certain servant-woman who had charge of 
the treasure of this lady, accused them of this to her 
mistress ; so the lady reproved them. Now it happened 



sacrifices they have present one of their KamSj or magicians. It is he 
who blesses the horse which is to be used as a holocaust. They call 
this horse Isik, They choose for this purpose an isabel or iron-grey 
one. It is, however, the magician who makes the choice of colour ; 
but they may not take a stallion. This ceremony only takes place 
when the Kam orders it, and thinks it necessary for the well-being of 
the herds. As soon as a horse has become isik, they renew with him 
each spring the same ceremony with the feast of Xh^Jun. They wash 
him with milk or a decoction of absinth, and perfume him with'this 
plant. They plait strips of red and white stuff into his mane and tail, 
and leave him in complete liberty. His master may only mount him 
after snow has fallen, then he must use him." ^2i(\\o^ {A us Siberien, 
i, 378) describes this feast in about the same terms ; he only differs in 
his statement that the isik is always a stallion or a mare. Pian de 
Carpine (620) seems to refer to the isik when he says that the Tartars 
" offered horses to their deceased emperors, which no one dared 
mount as long as they lived." 

^ The custom of having a child's horoscope cast is nearly every- 
where observed in Asia, and is so well known that no confirmation of 
our author's statement is necessary ; see, however, Ploss, Dns Kind^ i, 
83-89. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 243 

after this that this lady fell ill, and had shooting pains 
through her limbs. The diviners were called, and they, 
while seated at a distance, ordered one of the maids to 
put her hand on the painful spot, and to pull out whatever 
she should find. So she arose and did this, and she found 
in her hand a piece of felt, or some other thing. Then they 
told her to put it on the ground ; when it was put there it 
began to wriggle like some live animal.^ Then it was put 
into water, and it became like a leech, and they said : 
" Lady, some sorceress has done you this harm with her 
sorceries." And they accused her who had accused them 
about the furs. And she was taken outside the camp into 
the fields, and for vii days she was beaten and tried with 
other torments, so that she should confess. And in the 
meanwhile the lady died. When she heard of this she 
said (365) to them : " I know that my mistress is dead ; 
kill me, that I may go after her, for I never did her wrong." 
And as she would confess nothing, Mangu commanded that 
she be allowed to live ; and then those diviners accused the 
nurse of the daughter of the lady of whom I have spoken ;- 
and she was a Christian, and her husband was most 
respected among all the Nestorian priests. And she was 
taken to the place of execution with one of her maids, to 
make her confess ; and the maid confessed that her mistress 
had sent her to speak to a horse, to get an answer from it.^ 



^ The extraction of diseases in the shape of stones, splinters, worms, 
bits of rag, has been practised by Shamans and medicine-men in many 
parts of the world. The Chinese, Mongols, Tibetans, and other 
peoples of Eastern and Northern Asia still attribute many diseases 
to the presence of worms or some material object in the body (see on 
the subject in general, Bartels, Medecin der Naiurvblkery 183, et seq.^ 
and E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture^ ii, 146, et seg.) 

2 This daughter is Chirina, frequently mentioned in preceding pages. 

3 Loqui cum quodam equo^ ut quereret ab eo responsa. The 
Armenian chronicles of the thirteenth century speak of the Tartar 
magicians " who cause horses, camels, and felt idols to speak" 
(Dulaurier, op,cit.^ 50). I have no doubt some Shamanistic ceremony 
similar to those still performed in the Altai is referred to. Radloff 

R 2 



244 JOURNEY OF 

The woman (/.^,, the nurse) also confessed that she had 
done something to make herself liked by her master (/.^., 
Mangu ?), so that he should show her favour, but she had 
never done anything which could have injured him. She 
was asked whether her husband knew what she had done. 
She made excuse for him, having burnt characters and 
letters she had made herself.^ So she was put to death ; 
and Mangu sent her husband, this priest, to the bishop who 
was in Cathay, to try him, though he had not been found 
guilty. 

In the meanwhile it happened that the first wife of 
Mangu Chan bore a son ; and the diviners were called in 
to tell the child^s fortune, and they all foretold it good 
luck, saying that it would live long and become a great 
lord. But after a few days it happened that the child died. 
Then the mother in a rage called the diviners, saying : 
" You told me that my son would live, and here he is dead." 
Then they replied: " Lady, here we see the witchcraft of the 
nurse of Chirina, who the other day (366) was put to death. 
She killed your son, and now we see her carrying him off." 
There still lived a grown-up son and daughter of this 
woman in the camp, and the lady in a fury sent for them, and 
caused a man to kill the youth, and a woman the daughter. 



{op. cit., ii, 20, etseq.) describes in great detail a Shaman sacrifice in 
which a horse is the offering. Its soul is supposed to ascend to Bai 
Olgon, an emanation of Tengere Kaira Khan, the highest of gods. 
It is accompanied on this journey by the soul of a person who takes 
part in the ceremony, and who is called a Bash-tutkan. These two 
bring back from heaven various information interesting the person 
who has paid for the ceremony. 

^ I presume she had caused Mangu to drink certain charms which, 
having been written on paper, had afterwards been burnt and the ashes 
mixed with the Chan's drink. This woman was a Nestorian,and Badger 
(i, 238-240) says their priests still supply the people with charms. He 
gives translations of a number of them ; among them one " to excite 
love in a man toward a woman." D'Ohsson (iv. 54) states that Tut- 
shak, wife of Arghun, when tried for the death of that Ilkhan, con- 
fessed that she had tried to gain his affection by the use of certain 
writing as a charm, and which I presume she also caused him to 
swallow in his drink. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 245 

in revenge for her son, who the diviners had said had 
been killed by their mother. After this the Chan dreamed 
of these children, and on the morrow he asked what had 
been done with them. His servants were afraid to tell him ; 
but he inquired the more solicitously where they were, for 
they had appeared to him in a vision of the night. Then 
they told him ; and he forthwith sent to his wife, and asked 
her where she had found out that a wife could pass a death 
sentence, leaving her husband in ignorance (of what she 
had done) ; and he had her shut up for vii days, with orders 
that no food be given her. As to the man who had killed 
the youth, he had him decapitated, and had his head hung 
around the neck of the woman who had killed the young 
girl, and he caused her to be beaten with burning brands 
through the camp, and then put to death. And he would 
have put his own wife to death had it not been for the 
children he had had of her ; but he left her orduy and did 
not go back there for a month. 

These same diviners disturb the atmosphere with their 
incantations ;^ and when it is so cold from natural causes 
that they can bring no relief, they pick out some persons in 
the camps whom they accuse of having brought about the 
cold, ahd they are put to death at once. 

A short time before I left there, there was one of the 
concubines (367) who was ill, and she had languished for 
a long time ; so they said incantations over a certain 
German female slave of hers, who went to sleep for three 



^ Rashideddin states that when the Urianghit wanted to bring a 
storm to an end, they said injuries to the sky, the lightning and 
thunder. (I have seen this done myself by Mongol storm-dispellers. 
See Diary, 201, 203.) "The other Mongol people," he adds, "do the 
contrary. When the storm rumbles, they remain shut up in their 
huts, full of fear." The subject of storm-making, and the use of stones 
for that purpose, is fully discussed by Quatrem^re, Histoire, 428-440 
(see also infra, p. 254, and Yule, Marco Polo, i, 292, 300). Grenard 
(ii, 257) says the sorcerers called djaduger, in Chinese Turkestan, use 
a jade stone to make rain or fine weather. 



246 JOURNEY OF 

days. And when she came back to herself they asked her 
what she had seen ; (and she said) she had seen a great 
many persons, all of whom they declared would soon die ; 
but she had not seen her mistress among them, so they 
declared that she would not die of her complaint. I saw 
the girl, who had still a good deal of pain in her head from 
her sleep.^ 

Some among them evoke devils, and assemble at night 
in their dwelling those who want to have answers from the 
d^vil, and they place cooked meat in the centre of the 
dwelling ; and the chant who does the invocation begins 
repeating his incantations, and strikes violently the ground 
with a drum he holds. Finally he enters into a fury, and 
causes himself to be bound. Then comes the devil in the 
dark, and gives him the meat to eat, and he gives answers.^ 

Once, as I was told by master William, a certain 
Hungarian hid himself among them ; and the devil who was 
on top of the dwelling cried that he could not come in, for 

^ This mode of divining or fortune-telling by hypnotic sleep is so 
commonly used by savage and barbarous tribes the world over, that 
no confirmation of Friar William's statement seems necessary. 

2 This is a very accurate description of these well-known shaman 
ceremonies. The placing of the sacrificial meat in the centre of the 
hut is common to most of these rites. The devil usually comes in 
through the hole in the top of the tent, in America as well as in 
Asia and Africa (see Pallas, Voyages^ i, 569 ; Radloff, Aus Sidirien^ 
ii, 20 ; and on the subject of shaman drums, Bartels, Medecin der 
Naiurvblkery 174). 

Pian de Carpine (626) says : "They pay great attention to divinations, 
auguries, soothsayings, sorceries and incantations. And when the 
devils answer them they believe that a god has spoken to them ; and 
they call that god Itoga^ but the Comans name it Kam, And they 
fear and reverence it wonderfully, and offer it many oblations, and the 
first-fruits of their food and drink ; and according to its reply they do 
everything. At the new moon or at the full moon they begin what- 
ever they have to do, so they call it {i.e,^ the moon) the Great 
Emperor, and bow the knee to it and pray to it. They say that the 
sun is the mother of the moon, for it receives its light from the sun." 
Some writers are disposed to see in this word itoga the Mongol etugen^ 
** earth," Marco Polo's Natigai {s^e, Palladius, 15 ; Yule, Marco Polo, 
i, 249, ii, 479 ; and on the subject of divination, Vambery, Sketches, 
292 ; Schuyler, Turkestan, ii, 31 ; Castren, Reisen im Norden, 221 
etseq. \ and Grenard, ii, 254-257). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 247 

there was a Christian among them. Hearing this, he fled 
in all haste, for they set about looking for him. This and 
many other things they do, which it would take too long 
to tell of 




[ITH the feast of Pentecost (31st May) they began 
preparing the letters which he (the Chan) was to 
send you. In the meanwhile he came back to 
Caracarum, and held his great ceremony on the octave of 
Pentecost (7th June), and he wanted all the ambassadors 
to be present the last day of it. He sent also for me ; but 
I had gone (368) to the church to baptize three children of 
a poor German I had found there. Master William was 
the chief butler at this feast, for he it was who had made 
the drink-flowing tree ; and everyone poor and rich was 
singing and dancing and clapping hands before the Chan. 
Then he spoke to them, saying : " I have sent my brothers 
away, and have exposed them to danger among foreign 
nations. Now, let it be seen what you will do, when I 
shall want to send you to increase our realm." Each day 
during these four days, they changed their raiment, which 
was given them each day all of one colour from their boots 
to their turbans ityarani)?- At this time I saw there the 
envoy of the Caliph of Baldach, who used to be brought to 
court in a litter between two mules, and some said of hitn 
that he would make a peace with them, in view of which he 
was to give him X thousand horse soldiers for his army. 



* Pian de Carpine (755 and supra^ p. 19), Marco Polo (i, 374), and 
Odoric (Yule, Cathay^ 141 ) all speak of this custom of wearing different 
robes on each day of a feast. Odoric, however, says that the colours 
differed according to the rank. The custom of presenting khilats is 
still observed in Central Asia and Persia. I cannot learn from any 
other authority that the Mongols ever wore turbans. Odoric, loc. sup. 
cit.^ says the Mongols at the imperial feasts wore " coronets " {in capiie 
coronati). 



248 JOURNEY OF 

Others said that Mangu had said that he would not make 
a peace unless they destroyed all their fortresses, and that 
the envoy had replied : " When you bring all the hoofs of 
your horses, we will destroy all our fortresses." I saw also 
the envoy of a certain Soldan of India, who had brought 
VIII leopards and ten greyhounds taught to sit on horses' 
backs, as leopards sit^ When I asked them concerning 
India, in what direction it was from that place, they pointed 
to the west. And these envoys went back with me for 
nearly three weeks, always going westward. I saw there 
also envoys of the Soldan of Turkia, who had brought him 
rich presents f and he (t\e,, Mangu) had answered them, as 
I heard, that (369) he did not want gold or silver, but 
men ; so he wanted to be given troops. On the feast of 
saint John he held a great drinking bout, and I counted an 
hundred and five carts and ninety horses loaded with 
mare's milk ; and on the feast of the apostles Peter and 
Paul likewise. 

Finally, the letters he sends you being finished, they 
called me and interpreted them to me. I wrote down 
their tenor, as well as I could understand through an 
interpreter, and it is as follows : 

" The commandment of the eternal God is, in Heaven 



^ Marco Polo (i, 290) says the Great Khan frequently carried a 
hunting leopard {cheeia) behind him on his horse's croup. I have not 
seen mention made of greyhounds being carried about in this 
fashion. 

2 This sultan was Azzeddin, son of Ghaisheddin Keikhosrew 11. 
The Turks made a treaty in 1245 with the Mongols, by which they 
bound themselves to pay them an annual tribute of 1,250,000 iperpera 
(about ;^62 5,000), 14 camels and 1,000,000 sheep, all of which they 
had to deliver in the plain of Mongan (at the mouth of the river Kur, 
near the Caspian). Simon of St. Quentin, from whom I derive this 
information, adds that, exclusive of this regular tribute, the Turks 
had to pay vast amounts to the Mongols as presents to officers 
travelling officially, for their horses, victuals, etc., etc. The Notary 
of the Sultan of Turkey had calculated these expenses incurred for 
Tartar missions to Iconium for two years, and found that, exclusive of 
bread and wine, they had amounted to 600,000 iperpera (about 
;^3oo,ooo) (Vincent of Beauvais, bk. xxx, ch. xxviii, 451^). 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 249 

there is only one eternal God, and on Earth there is only 
one lord, Chingis Chan, the Son of God, Demugin, (or) 
Chingis 'sound of iron.'" (For they call him Chingis, 
" sound of iron," because he was a blacksmith ;^ and puffed 
up in their pride they even say that he is the son of God). 
" This is what is told you. Wherever there be a Moal, or 
a Naiman, or a Merkit or a Musteleman, wherever ears can 
hear, wherever horses can travel, there let it be heard and 
known ; those who shall have heard my commandments 
and understood them, and who shall not believe and 
shall make war against us,^ shall hear and see that 
they have eyes and see not ; aud when they shall want to 
hold anything they shall be without hands, and when 
they shall want to walk they shall be without feet : this is 
the eternal command of God. 

" This, through the virtue of the eternal God, through 
the great world of the Moal, is the word of Mangu (370) 
Chan to the lord of the French, King Louis, and to all the 
other lords and priests and to all the great realm of the 
French, that they may understand our words. For the 
word of the eternal God to Chingis Chan has not reached 
unto you, either through Chingis Chan or others who have 
come after him. 

" A certain man by the name of David came to you as 
the ambassador of the Moal, but he was an impostor ; and 
you sent back with him your envoys to Keu Chan. After 
the death of Keu Chan your ambassadors reached this 



^ The belief that Chingis Khan was a blacksmith at times is still 
universal in Mongolia. I have seen several hills which derive their 
names from legends placing Chingis's smithy on their summits. The 
mistake arises from confounding Chingis's name of Tetnuchin^ which 
means " best iron," with Temurji^ in Turkish " a blacksmith." As to 
the name Chingis, it means " mighty." The title " Son of God " is 
but the old Chinese imperial title of T'ien-tzit^ " Son of Heaven " (see 
d'Ohsson, i, 36, 99, and Pian deCarpine, 715). 

2 The text is certainly incorrect here ; it reads : et voluerunt credere^ 
et noluerunt facere exercitum contra nos. 



250 JOURNEY OF 

court. And Camus his wife sent you nasic stuffs and 
letters. But as to affairs of war and of peace and the 
welfare and happiness of a great realm, what could this 
woman, who was viler than a dog, know about them ? " 
(For Mangu told me with his own lips that Camus was the 
worst kind of a witch, and that she had destroyed her 
whole family by her witchcraft.)^ 

" These two monks, who have come from you to Sartach, 
Sartach sent to Baatu ; but Baatu sent them to us, for 
Mangu Chan is the greatest lord of the Moal realm. Now 
then, to the end that the whole world and the priests and 
monks may be in peace and rejoice, and that the word of 
God be heard among you, we wanted to (371) appoint 
Moal envoys (to go back) with these your priests. But 
they replied that between us and you there is a hostile 
country, and many wicked people, and bad roads ; so they 
were afraid that they could not take our envoys in safety 
to you ; but that if we would give them our letters con- 
taining our commandments, they would carry them to 
King Louis himself. So we do not send our envoys with 
them ; but we send you in writing the commandments of 
the eternal God by these your priests : the commandments 
of the eternal God are what wc impart to you. And when 
you shall have heard and believed, if you will obey us, 
send your ambassadors to us ; and so we shall have proof 
whether you want peace or war with us. When, by the 
virtue of the eternal God, from the rising of the Sun to the 
setting, all the world shall be in universal joy and peace, 
then shall be manifested what we are to be. But if you 
hear the commandment of the eternal God, and understand 
it, and shall not give heed to it, nor believe it, saying to 
yourselves : * Our country is far off, our mountains are 
strong, our sea is wide,' and in this belief you make war 

— c — 

1 On Ogul Gaimish and her death, see supra ^ p. 164. 




FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 251 

against us, you shall find out what we can do. He who 
makes easy what is difficult, and brings close what is far 
off, the eternal God He knows." 

They had in the first place called us in the letters your 
ambassadors. So I told them : " Call us not ambassadors, 
for I explained thoroughly to the Chan that we were not 
the ambassadors of King Louis." They then went to him 
and told him. But they came back to me and said that 
(though) he had used it as a great (372) compliment, he had 
directed that they should write as I should tell them. I 
told them, nevertheless, to strike out the word ' ambassador,' 
and to call us monks or priests. While this was being 
done, my companion, hearing that we would have to go 
back to Baatu by way of the desert, and that a Moal would 
guide us, ran, without my knowing it, to Bulgai, the grand 
secretary, and intimated to him by signs that he would die 
if he went that way ; and so when the day arrived on 
which we were to take our leave, to wit, a fortnight after 
the feast of saint John,^ when we were called to court, the 
secretaries said to my companion : " Now Mangu Chan 
wants your companion to go back by way of Baatu, and 
you say that you are ill, as is evident you are. So Mangu 
says, if you want to go with your companion, go. But it 
rests with you ; for perhaps you may be left in some lani^ 
and you will not be looked after, and you will be a burden 
on your companion. If you choose to stay here, he will 
provide you with everything necessary, till some other 
ambassadors come with whom you can go back leisurely 
and along a road on which towns are found." The friar 
replied: "God bless the Chan. I will stay.*' But I said 
to the friar : " Brother, see to it what you do. 1 will not 
leave you." " You," he said, " will not be leaving me ; but 



^ The feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist falls on the 24th 
June. Rubruck's visit to court was therefore on or about the 8th July 
1254, a day or two before he started on his journey back to Syria. 



252 JOURNEY OF 

I leave you ; for should I go with you, I can see danger of 
death to my soul and body ; for it cannot bear such terrible 
hardships." 

Now they were holding in their hands three gowns or 
tunics, and they said to us : " You will not accept gold or 
silver, and you have stayed here a long time praying for the 
Chan. He begs that each of you will accept at least a 
plain gown, so that you go not away empty-handed." So 
we had to accept them through respect for him, for they 
hold it (373) very bad that one should scorn their gifts. 
At first he used to make inquiries as to what we wanted, 
and we always replied in the same way, so that the 
Christians used to abuse the Idolaters for wanting nothing 
else than gifts. And these made answer that we were 
foolish, for if he (/.^., the Chan) wanted to give them his 
whole orduy they would take it with pleasure and do 
wisely. Having taken the gowns, they asked us to say an 
oraison for the Chan, and this we did ; and having been 
granted leave, we went back to Caracarum.^ 

It happened, however, on a day (before that) when we 
were with the monk and the other ambassadors some 
distance from the court, that the monk beat the board so 
loudly that Mangu Chan heard it, and asked what it was. 
And they told him. Then he asked why he was so far 
from the court. They told him that it was troublesome 
to send him daily horses and oxen (to come) to court, and 
they added that it would be better if he remained in 
Caracarum beside the church and there did his praying. 
So the Chan sent to him to say that if he would go to Cara- 
carum and remain there by the church, he would give him 
all he required. The monk, however, replied : " I came 
here from Jerusalem, in the Holy Land, by the command 



^ Mangu was probably camped somewhere in the vicinity of the 
city. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 253 

of God, and I left a city in which there were a thousand 
churches better than that in Caracarum. If he wants me 
to remain here and pray for him, as God commanded me, 
I will stay ; otherwise I will go back whence I came." That 
very same evening oxen harnessed to carts were brought 
him, and the next morning he went back to the place he 
had been in the habit of occupying in front of the ordu. 

A little while before we left there, a certain Nestorian 
monk arrived, and he seemed to be a wise man. Bulgai, 
the grand secretary, established him in front of the ordu ; 
and the Chan sent him his books to bless. 




[E returned then to (374) Caracarum ; and while we 
were in the house of master William, my guide 
came, bringing X iascot, five of which he placed 
in the hand of master William, telling him to spend them 
on the part of the Chan for the wants of the friar ;^ the 
other V he put in the hands of Homo Dei, my interpreter, 
with directions to spend them on the journey for my 
wants. Master William had told them to do this, without 
our knowing it. I at once caused one {iascoi) to be sold, and 
distributed the change among the poor Christians who were 
there, all of them having their eyes fixed upon us ; 
another we spent in buying what was necessary for us 
in clothing and in other things ; with the third, Homo 
Dei bought a few things on which he could make a small 
profit, which he did. The balance we also expended, 
for from the time we entered Persia they never gave us 
enough of what we needed, nor did they ever even among 
the Tartars ; but there we rarely found anything to buy. 



^ Bartholomew of Cremona, who had decided to remain in Mon- 
golia. 



2$4 JOURNEY OF 

Master William, once your subject, sends you a girdle 
ornamented with a precious stone, such as they wear 
against lightning and thunder ;i and he sends you endless 
salutations, praying always for you ; and I cannot suffi- 
ciently express to God or to you the thanks I owe him. 
In all I baptized VI persons there. 

So we separated with tears, my companion remaining 
with master William, and I alone with my interpreter 
going back with my guide (375) and one servant, who had 
an order by which we were to receive every four days 
one sheep for the IIII of us.^ 




JN two months and ten days we came to Baatu, and 
(on the way there) we never saw a town, nor the 
trace of any building save tombs, with the excep- 
tion of one little village,^ in which we did not eat bread ; 
neither did we ever take a rest in those two months and 



* I do not know of any stone worn as a charm to avert lightning. 
The Mongols used a stone, caWedyerfa or yat/a, to bring on storms, to 
draw rain. Rashideddin says the ceremony to bring on a storm by 
this means was called yeda mishi. " Certain stones," he remarks, 
" when they have been soaked in water and dried, have the property 
of attracting, even in summer, storms accompanied by flurries of snow 
and excessive cold, or torrents of rain " (d'Ohsson, ii, 614) ; Bergmann 
(iii, 183) says the Kalmuksuse for this purpose bezoar stones (see also 
Baber, Mimoires^ i, 86 ; E. B. Tylor, Prim. Cult., ii, 263, and 
Early History, 22^^ 226). The Chinese call " thunderstone " {lei ta 
shih) any meteoric stone or stone implement of unknown origin dug 
out of the earth. 

2 His party travelled, however, in company of the mission of a 
Sultan of India for the first three weeks (see supra, p. 248). 

3 This little village must have been Imil, where Kuyuk Khan had 
his ordu. friar William states {supra, p. 163) that he passed by this 
ordu on his way back. F. M. Schmidt (231, 232) agrees with this 
view (conf. Pian de Carpine, supra, p. 15). This identification agrees 
with the additional* fact related by the traveller (281), that in going 
west he travelled by the north side of Lake Balkash. It must be 
noted that our traveller only states that he saw this village ; he did 
not break bread there. He has, in fact, remarked in a previous 
passage (p. 165) that his guide did not dare enter the place. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. :2S5 

X days, except for one day only, when we could not get 
horses. We came back for the most part of the' way 
through the same peoples, though generally through dif- 
ferent districts ; for we went in winter and came back in 
summer by parts farther to the north, fifteen days excepted, 
when both in going and in coming back we had to keep 
along a river between mountains, where there is no grass 
except close to the river.^ We had to go for two days — 
sometimes for three days — without taking any other 
nourishment than cosmos. Sometimes we were in great 
danger, not being able to find any people, at moments when 
we were short of food, and with worn-out horses. 

When I had ridden XX days I got news of the King of 
Hermenia ; he had passed there at the end of August, 
going to meet Sartach, who was on his way to Mangu 
Chan with his flocks and herds,'^ his wives and children ; 



* For reasons previously stated, I take this river to be the Ulungur, 
though in the lower part of its course it does not flow between 
mountains, but in a tolerably broad valley, with ranges of low hills 
on either side (see F. M. Schmidt, 230). Fifteen days is rather a 
long time to take to descend the valley of the Ulungur river, which, 
from the point where it takes a westerly course till it empties into 
the Ulungur lake, is not much more than 375 versts (259 miles) 
long ; still the scarcity of grass along this part of the road may have 
obliged them to go slowly ; and 1 am inclined to tTiink the reference 
in the next phrase to worn-out horses and the total absence of 
inhabitants, may apply to this part of the journey in particular. This 
would explain the time consumed ; the average distance made daily 
would be about 16^ miles. 

2 This seems to be at variance with the Armenian chronicles 
and the statements of Mohammedan contemporary writers. King 
Heythum was received in audience by Mangu, at or near Kara- 
korum, on the 13th September, 1254. On his way thither, he had 
visited both Sartach's and Batu's ordusy which were on either side of 
the Volga. This was in the early part of 1254, so this visit cannot be 
the one here referred to. The king left Mangu's camp to return to 
Armenia on November ist, 1254; and when at Barchm, on the Syr 
daria, he turned north to go and again visit Sartach, who was then 
on his way to the Great Khan's court. Heythum, we are told, took 
eight months on his return journey to Cilicia ; he cannot, therefore, 
have met Sartach the second time before the early spring of 1255. 
Mohammedan writers disagree as to the date of Sartach's journey 
to Mangu's court ; some say he started in 1256, before Batu's death ; 
while others state that it was after his death (d'Ohsson, ii, 334, 336, 



256 JOURNEY OF 

though his big dwellings had been left behind between the 
Etilia and the T^nais. 

I paid my respects (to Sartach) and told him that I 
would right willingly stay in his country, but that Mangu 
Chan wished me to go back and carry his letters. He 
replied that one must do the bidding of Mangu Chan. 
Then I asked Coiac about our servants. He replied that 
they were in Baatu*s ordu^ carefully looked after. I 
reminded (376) him also of our vestments and books : he 
replied : " Did you not bring them to Sartach ? " I said : 
" I brought them to Sartach, but I did not give them to 
him, as you know ; " and I repeated to him what I had 
replied when he had asked whether I would give them to 
Sartach. Then he answered : " You speak the truth, and 
no one can resist the truth. I left your things at my 
father's, who stays near Sarai, the new town that Baatu is 
making on the Etilia ; but our priests have some of your 
vestments here with them." " As to the vestments," I 
said, " keep what you want of them, so long as my books 
are given back to me." Then he said that he would tell 
Sartach what I said. " I must have," I said, " a letter for 
your father, so that he will give mc back all my things." 
As they were then just on the point of starting, he said : 
" One of the ordu of the ladies is following us closely ; stop 



and Dulaurier, 401). We will assume, however, that the Armenian 
chronicles are correct, and that in 1255 he was on his way to the 
court of the Great Khan. The distance between Batu's camp on 
the Volga and Karakorum by the route followed by Friar William, 
and probably by King Heythum on his journey east, is roughly 
about 2,600 miles. Friar William made the distance in 70 days ; 
this supposes an average speed of 37 miles a day ; the king, on his 
side, took 123 days, or an average of 21 miles daily. At the end of 
August, 1254, Heythum must therefore have been about 320 miles 
from Karakorum. I suppose the twenty days should be counted from 
the time our traveller left Kamkorum ; he had probably covered 
about 400 miles of the journey by that time. This passage has 
puzzled previous editors of Friar William's narrative. F. M. Schmidt, 
(231) suggests the reading of LX instead of XX. Friar William, in a 
subsequent passage (377) refers to the first visit of the king to Sartach, 
and to his kindly interest in his man (josset. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 257 

there, and I will send you by this man here the answer of 
Sartach." I was anxious that he should not deceive me ; 
but 1 could not wrangle with him. The man he had 
pointed out to me came in the evening, bringing with him 
two tunics, which I took for a whole piece of uncut silk 
stuff, and he said to me : " Here are two tunics : Sartach 
sends you one, and the other, if you see fit, you niay present 
(377) to the King from him." I replied : " I do not make 
use of such clothes ; I will present both to the King for the 
honour of your lord/' **No," he said, "do, as you choose 
with them." Now it pleases me to send them both to you, 
and I do so by the bearer of these presents. He gave me 
also letters to the father of Coiac, to return to me all that 
belonged to me, for he wanted nothing of mine. 

We reached the ordu of Baatu the same day we had left 
it a year previously, the second day after the Elevation of 
the holy Cross (i6th September), and I found with 
pleasure our servants in safety, but suffering from great 
poverty, as Gosset told me ; and had it not been for the 
King of Hermenia, who had comforted them greatly and 
recommended them to Sartach, they would have been lost, 
for they thought that I was dead ; and the Tartars were 
already inquiring of them if they knew how to herd cattle or 
milk horses. For had I not come back, they would have 
been made their slaves. 

After that, Baatu caused me to come into his presence, 
and had interpreted to me the letters Mangu Chan sends 
you. For Mangu had written to him that if he wished to 
add, strike out, or alter anything in them, he was to do so. 
Then he said to me : " Take these letters and make them 
understood." He asked me also which road I wanted to 
take, by sea^ or by (378) land. I told him the sea route 
was closed, for it was winter, so I would have to go by 

^ I suppose he means from the mouth of the Volga, or Sarai, by boat 
down the Caspian to Derbend. 



258 JOURNEY OF 

land. I still thought at that time that you were in Syria, 
and I took the road toward Persia. If I had imagined 
that you had crossed over into France, I should have gone 
to Hungary and should have come sooner to France ; and 
by that road I should have travelled with less trouble than 
in Syria. 

We drove about for a month with him (/.^., Baatu) before 
we could get a guide. Finally they appointed an lugur, 
who, understanding that I would not give him anything, 
though I told him that I wanted to go straight to 
Hermenia, had letters given him to take me to the Soldan 
of Turkie, hoping to receive a present from the Soldan and 
make more along that road.^ 




{O we started XV days before the feast of All Saints 
{i.e., 1 6th October) in the direction of Sarai, going 
due south, and descending along the Etilia, which 
divides below there into three great branches, each of 
which is nearly twice as large as the river of Damietta. 
The rest (of the river) forms four minor branches, so that 
we crossed that river in vil places by boat. On the 
middle branch is a town called Summerkeur, which is 
without walls ; but when the river is in flood it is sur- 
rounded by water. For vill years the Tartars were around 
it before they got it. And there were Alans in it, and 
Saracens.2 We found there a German with his wife, and 



^ The guide's method of making money is explained in two other 
passages (389, 391). 

^ Yule {Cathay, 287) thinks the name Summerkeur (or Summerkent 
as some of the MSS. give it) is a clerical error for Sittarkent, 
Pegolotti's Gintarchan or Gittarchan, that is, old Astrakan. Purchas 
had already made the same identification. The position assigned 
by the early Mahommedan geographers to the town of I til, or Atel, the 
capital of the Khazars, and the description they have left us of it, agree 
§0 well with pur traveller's §t^t^ment, that I am disposed to think the 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 259 

he was a right worthy man, with whom Gosset (379) had 
stopped ;^ fpr Sartach had sent him there to rid his ordu 
of him. Round about these parts Baatu is on one side of 
the river and Sartach on the other about Christmas time ; 
and they go not down any farther. And it happens that 
the whole river freezes over, and then they pass across. 
About here there is very great plenty of pasturage, and 
(the Tartars) live among the reeds till the ice begins to 
thaw. 

When the father of Coiac received the letters of Sartach, 
he gave me back my vestments, excepting three albs, an 
amice embroidered in silk, a stole, a girdle, a gold- 
fringed altar cloth^ and a surplice ; he gave me back also 
the silver vases, excepting a censer and a little vase in 
which was holy oil, all of which latter things the priests 
who were with Sartach had kept. He gave me back the 
books, with the exception of the psalter of my lady the 
queen, which he kept with my consent ; I could not refuse 



two places are identical. The name Summerkeur may also be a 
corrupt form of the name Sacassin^ which the Mahommedan 
geographer of Baku, Abdelrashid, applies to the city of Atel, and 
which he says was in his time submerged (d'Ohsson, i, 346 ; see 
also Ishtakri, 103 ; Ibn Haukal, 185, 186 ; and F. M. Schmidt, 241-243). 
Ishtakri {loc, cit.) says that Atel was inhabited by Mahommedans and 
Christians, a detail which our traveller confirms. Friar William 
seems to have visited the town on his way to Sarai, so this makes 
Yule's identification of it with Old Astrakan quite unacceptable. It 
must, however, have been quite near Sarai, for Ibn Haukal (185) 
only counts 14 days' travel from Derbend to the town of Atel, while 
Ishtakri (106), counts 12 ; but perhaps part of the journey — or the 
whole — was made by boat on the Caspian and the Volga. I have been 
no more fortunate than previous commentators of Rubruck in finding 
any mention of the capture of this city by the Mongols. The text 
seems only to imply that they occupied it eight years after their 
arrival in the country. 

1 One MS. reads hyemaverat^ "had passed the winter" (of 1253-54, 
I suppose). 

* Tualiam ornatam aurifrigio, Tualia may be a barbarous form 
of the French toile^ though in another passage our traveller uses the 
word telle de cotone, "a cotton cloth." There is an Italian word, 
tavalia^ which means an altar-cloth. Purchas translates this by " a 
Tualia a4ori)e4 with golden embroyderie," 



26o JOURNEY OF 

it him, for he said it would please Sartach greatly. He also 
asked me, in case I should come back that way, to bring a 
man knowing how to make parchment. He was making, 
by order of Sartach, a big church and a new village on the 
west bank of the river, and (380) wanted, he said, to make 
books for Sartach's use. I know, however, that Sartach 
cares not for such things. 

Sarai and the palace of Baatu are on the eastern shore, 
and the valley through which flow these branches of the 
river is more than Vll leagues wide, and there is a great 
quantity of fish there.^ The versified Bible and a book in 
Arabic, worth thirty bezants, and several other things, I 
did not get back. 




fEAVING it {i.e,, Sarai) then on the feast of All 
Saints (ist November), and going constantly 
south, we reached by the feast of saint Martin 
(15th December) the mountains of the Alans. Between 
Baatu and Sarai, for XV days we found no one save one of 
his {i.e.y Baatu's) sons preceding him (south) with his 
hawks and hawkers, who were very numerous. From the 
feast of All Saints for XV days we found no one, and there 
were two days on which we nearly died of thirst : for a 
whole day and a night, and a day following to the third 
hour, we did not find any water. 



^ Mesalek-al-absar (285, 287) says Sarai, meaning " the Palace, " 
was founded by Berek^, brother of Batu. It stood in a salty plain 
and was without walls, though the palace had walls flanked by towers. 
The town was large, had markets, mat/rasas Siud baths. It is usually 
identified with Selitrennoyd Gorodok, about 70 miles above Astrakan 
(see Ibn Batuta, i, 79, ii, 446 ; Yule, Marco Polo, i, 5, ii, 495, 537, 
and Cathay^ 231, 233, 287 ; and Heyd, ii, 227). Pallas {Voyages^ v, 
162) says he crossed the Volga near Selitrennoye in June, 1773, when 
the waters were high. The main stream and its branches were about 
30 versts (20 miles) broad. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 26 1 

The Alans in these mountains still hold out against (the 
Tartars), so Sartach has had to send two out of every 
ten men to hold the mouths of the defiles, lest they come 
out and lift their cattle in the plains between them, the 
Alans and the Iron Gate, which is two days thence, and 
where begins the plain of Arcacc.^ Between the sea and 
the mountains are Saracens called (381) Lesgi, (who live) 
in the mountains and who also withstand (the Tartars) ; 
so the Tartars at the foot of the mountains of the Alans 
had to give us twenty men to escort us beyond the Iron 
Gate. And this pleased me much, for I hoped to see them 
under arms ; for I had never been able to see their arms, 
though most anxious to. When we came to a dangerous 
passage, out of the XX (only) two had haubergeons. I 
asked them how they came by them, and they said they 
had got them from the Alans, who are good makers of such 
things,^ and excellent artisans. So it seems to me that 
they have few arms except arrows and bows and fur gowns. 
I saw given to them iron plates and iron caps from Persia, 
and I also saw two who had come to present themselves 
before Mangu, armed with jackets of convex pieces of 
hard leather, which were most unfit and unwieldy.^ 



^ Planicies Arcacci, As F. M. Schmidt (246) remarks, the name 
Arcacc is absolutely unknown. Our traveller appears to use it to 
designate the extreme south-eastern extremity of the plain held by 
the Alans. 

* The Zafer nameh refers to this country of the Alans as "the 
country of the cuirass-makers" (Quatrem^re, op, cit., 71). 

2 All contemporary western writers speak of the leather armour used 
by the Mongols (Matth. Paris, op. cit.^ iv, TJ^ 115, 388). Vincent 
of Beauvais, on the authority, of course, of Simon of St. Quentin (bk. 
xxix, ch. Ixxix, 420) says : " When the archers let fly their arrows, they 
withdraw entirely their right arm from out their armour, and put it 
back when the shaft has left the bow. But only the barons and the 
military chiefs, the standard-bearers and the constables wear this 
armour, so it is believed that not a tenth part of them have it or wear 
it. . . . They do not use shields, and very few of them have lances. . . J' 
Pian de Carpine (684-689) describes at great length the arrows and 
armour of the Mongols. " All of them," he says, " must have at least 
the following arms : two or three bows, at least one good one, three 



262 JOURNEY OF 

Before we reached the Iron Gate, we came to a walled 
hamlet {castellmn) of the Alans, which was Mangu Chan's, 
he having conquered that (part of the) country. Here we 
found grape-vines for the first time and drank wine. The 
next day we came to the Iron Gate, which Alexander the 
Macedonian made ; and it is a town whose eastern end is 
on the sea-shor«, and there is a small-sized plain between 
the sea and the mountains across which this town stretches 
to the top of the mountain adjoining it on the west ; so it 
is that there is no road higher up, on account of the steep- 
ness of the (382) mountain, nor any lower down by the 
sea, but only straight through the town where is the iron 
gate from which the town takes its name. 

The town is more than a mile long, and on the top of 
the mountain is a strong fort ; its width, however, is but a 
stone's throw. It has very strong walls without moats, 
and towers of great dressed {politis) stones ; but the Tartars 
have destroyed the tops of the towers and the parapets of 
the walls, making the towers even with the walls. Below 
this town the country used to be a real paradise.^ 



big quivers full of arrows, an axe and ropes {funes) to pull machines. . . . 
Their helmets are of iron or steel on top, but that portion which goes 
round the neck and throat is of leather. . . . Some of them have spears, 
and at the lower end of the heads is a hook to pull people out of the 
saddle. Their arrows are two feet one palm and two fingers long. . . . 
The heads of their arrows are very sharp, and they always carry files 
to sharpen them. . . . They have shields made of wickerwork, but I 
do not think they carry any except in camp, and when on guard over 
the emperor and the princes, and then only at night " (see also Marco 
Polo, i, 252 ; ii, 458). The arrows which Strabo (vii, 3, 254) says the 
Scythians carried were practically the same. He states that they used 
raw oxhide helmets and cuirasses, wicker shields, spears, bows and 
swords. 

^ Derbend is called Demir kapi^ or " the Iron Gate," by the Turks. 
It is the Carpiae pilae of classical authors, "the Gate of Zur^^ of 
Procopius (iv, 3), the Djora of the Armenian chronicles (Klaproth, 
Jour. Asiat.^ xii, 277) the Bab-el Abwab^ or '* Gate of Gates" of the 
early Mohammedan geographers. Ishtakri (86) says the wall and 
the gates were built by Kosroes Anushirwan ; and Ibn Haukal (158) 
refers to the two walls of Derbend, the one of stone, the other of earth, 
besides the walls of stone bound with lead projecting into the sea to 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 263 

Two days thence we found another town called 
Samaron,^ in which were many Jews ; and when passing 
through it we noticed walls coming down from the moun- 
tains to the sea. Leaving the road by the sea at these 
walls, for at that point it turned eastward, we went uphill 
toward the south. 

The next day we crossed a valley, where we saw the 
foundations of walls running from one mountain to another, 
and along the tops of the mountains there was. no road. 
These were once the barriers of Alexander,^ shutting out 
the wild tribes, that is the desert nomads, so that they 
could not get in on the cultivated lands and the towns. 



form the port (see also Ibn Kordadbeh, 490-496, and Masudi, ii, 2, 7, 
72). Barbaro (86) speaks of it as Derbenth^ and says that the town 
from one gate to another is half a mile broad, and that the walls are 
of great stones, after the Roman style of building. On the Alexander 
legend concerning the building of the wall and Iron Gate, see Peschel 
{Erdkunde^ 93) and Yule {Marco Polo ^ i» 55 ; "> 537)- Barbaro (90) 
speaks of the country around Derbend as follows : " Of Derbenth 
I shall tell yo one marvailous matter. Going from the one gate 
towardes this place, even till ye come under the walles, ye shall 
finde grapes and fruictes of all sortes, specially almons. On the 
other parte there are neither fruictes nor any trees, except it be certein 
qwynces ; and so it endureth x, xv, or xx myles of that side." 

^ Samaron is unquestionably, as pointed out by F. M. Schmidt 
(246), Edrisi*s Semmur^ but it is not easy to locate it accurately. It 
must have been a little to the north of Beshbarmak on the Caspian. 
There is a little bay, some 15 miles south of Derbend, called Samur, 
but our traveller's Samaron was probably some 60 to 70 miles from 
that town. Pian de Carpine (748) speaks of a people called Brutacki\ 
" who are said to be Jews and who shave their heads," as living some- 
where in this region (see d'Avezac, 496, and supra, p. 12). Benjamin 
of Tudela (36) refers to the great number of Jews living in his time 
(latter part of twelfth century) among the Alans in the Caucasus. On 
the Jews in Transcaucasia, see Haxthausen, Transcaucasia, 136 et seq., 
and conf Maundevile, 265. 

2 Claustra Alexandria the Sedd-Iskender of Persian writers. Vin- 
cent of Beauvais (bk. xxix, ch. Ixxxix, 422^), says (quoting Friar 
Simon, of course) "As our scholastic histories say that Alexander the 
Great, King of the Macedonians, besought God to shut up the Jews 
within the Caspian mountains, our Friars of the Holy Order of 
Preachers, who have for the last seven years been in Triphilis (Tiflis), 
in Georgia, near the Caspian mountains, have diligently inquired of 
Georgians, Persians, as well as of Jews, concerning this shutting up, and 
they have all said, even the Jews, that they knew nothing certain of 
it, except what they have found in their histories." 



264 JOURNEY OF 

There are other barriers within which are Jews, but I could 
learn nothing precise concerning them ; however, there are 
many Jews in all the towns of Persia.^ 

The next day we came to a big city called Samag ; ^ and 
the day after that we entered a vast plain called (383) 
Moan,^ through which flows the Cur, from which the 
Curges, whom we call Georgians, take their name.'* It 
flows through the middle of Tefilis, which is the capital 
city of the Curges, coming straight from the west and 
flowing eastward into that sea, and it has most excellent 
salmon. In that plain we again found Tartars. The 
Araxes also flows through this plain, coming out of 
Greater Hermenia from due south-west, out of what is 
called the Ararat country, which is Hermenia ; thus it is 
that in the book of Kings it is said of the sons of 
Senacherib, that^ their father having been killed they fled 
into the country of the Hermenians ; while in Isaiah it is 
said that they fled into the country of Ararat.^ 

To the west of this beautiful plain is Curgia, and the 



^ Benjamin of Tudela (48) estimated the number of Jews in Persia 
when he was there at over 70,000. 

2 The town of Shamakhi or Shamaka. Barbaro (86) says it had 
between four and five thousand houses in his time, and that it manu- 
factured silks, fustians and other things. It was at one time the 
capital of Shirwan. Anthony Jenkinson (98, 131) speaks of "Shamakye 
in Media." 

3 Jordanus correctly transcribes the name Mogan, which is still the 
name of the plain between the Aras and the Kura. The Armenian 
chroniclers sometimes refer to it under the name of Taran or Tahin, 

* Conf. supra^ p. 39, where Friar Benedict gives another explanation 
of the name Georgian. The MSS. of Rubruck write the name 
Gurgi and Curgi. In view of the etymology stated by the author, I 
have written Curgi throughout. The kingdom of Georgia was first 
attacked by the Mongols in 1221. Pian de Carpine (709) speaks of 
the Obesi sive Georgiani^ thus identifying them, as d'Avezac (479) 
notes, with the Abazes on the coast of the Black Sea. As used by 
Friar William, however, the name has a much wider application. 
Persian writers called Georgia Gurgestan. Clavijo (80) calls the 
Kura Corras, and Jenkinson (98) speaks of the Cyrus and the Arash. 

^ 4 (2) Kings, xix, 37 ; Isaiah, xxxvii, 38. Chardin, Voyages^ix^ 158, 
makes the same remark as our author. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 265 

Crosminians^ used to be in this plain ; and there at the 
base of the mountains is a great city called Ganges,^ which 
used to be their capital, and which prevented the Curges 
from coming down into the plain. 

So we came to a bridge of boats held by great iron 
chains stretched across the river, there where the Cur and 
the Araxes fall into each other.^ Here the Araxes loses 
its name. From this point we ascended continually along 
the Araxes, of which it is said — 

pontem dedigriatur Araxes ^^ 

(384) leaving Persia on our left to the south, and the 
Caspian mountains and Greater Curgia on our right to the 
north, and going toward Africa to the south-west. 

We passed through the camp of Baachu, who is the chief of 
the army there on the Araxes, and who has conquered the 
Curges, the Turks and the Persians. There is another 
(chief) at Tauris in Persia, who superintends the tribute, and 
whose name is Argun ; and Mangu has recalled both of 
them to give their places to his brother who is coming to 
these countries.^ This country I am describing to you is 



^ The Khorazmians conquered Georgia in 1225. The name occurs 
in Arrian, Expedition vii, 185, in the form Xaypaa-fiioi. In western 
mediaeval works it is usually written Corasmini, CAorosmini, Coremins 
or Corvins. 

2 F. M. Schmidt (248) has identified Rubruck's Ganges with Gaush 
or Gendje, the present Elisabethpol. 

3 The point of junction of the Araxes with the Kura seems to 
have shifted considerably. Ibn Haukal (162) says it was on the 
border of the plain of Mugan, near Mahmudabad. Le Bruyn 
( Voyage^ iv, 4) says it was about half a league from the village of 
Sgavad. Modern maps make the confluence near the town of 
Kalakoiny. 

* Virgil, yEneid^ viii, 728. 

^ Friar Simon of St. Quentin calls this Mongol General Bajothnoy^ 
noy representing the Mongol word noin or noian^ "lord," a title first 
given to chiefs of a turnan, and later to all persons of distinction. 
Guillaume of Nangis (364) calls him Bachou, while Mahommedan 
writers transcribe his name Baiju^ and Armenian chronicles call him 
Bachu Ghurchi. This general was placed at the head of the Mongol 
army in Georgia and Armenia in 1242, to succeed Charmaghan (or 



266 JOURNEY OF 

not Persia proper, but that which used to be called 
Hircania.^ 

I was in the house of Baachu, and he gave me wine to 
drink ; he himself drank cosmos^ which I should have 
preferred to drink if he had given it to me. Though the 
wine was new and good, cosmos satisfies better a famished 
man. 

So we ascended along the Araxes from the feast of 
saint Clement (23rd November) to the second Sunday of 
Quadragesima (iSth February) till we reached the head of 
the river. And beyond the mountain in which it rises is 
a goodly city called Aarserum,^ which is the Soldan of 
Turkie's, and near these to the north, at the foot of the 
mountains of the Curges, rises the Eufrates. I would have 



Djurmagun); who had commanded it since 1232 (Klaproth, Jour. 
Asiat., xii, 205, d'Ohsson, ii, 221, 229). He it was who in 1247 received 
Friar Ascelin and Simon of St. Quentin. Arghun aka, according to 
Mahommedan historians, set out from Persia for the court of Mangu 
in 1256, leaving his son as his substitute during his absence with 
Hulagu, the brother of Mangu referred to in the text, who arrived 
in Samarkand in September, 1255. In 1258, Arghun took up again 
his post in Persia (d'Ohsson, ii, 141, 267). According to Armenian 
writers, Arghun made a census of the western portion of the 
Mongol empire in 1255. He is described by these writers as a very 
harsh, cruel man (Klaproth, op. cit.^ 208, 213 ; and Dulaurier, 460). 

^ Isidorus (op, cit.^ xiv, 501), our author's usual geographical 
authority, limits Hircania on the east by the Caspian, on the south 
by Armenia, on the north by Albania, and on the west by Iberia. 
This was practically identical with the Hircania of Pomponius Mela 
(603, 650). • Ptolemy (vi, 7) applies the name to a much larger area. 

2 Erzerum. Guillaunie of Nangis (341) writes the name Arseron (or 
Arsaron). He says it was the land of Hus where Saint Job lived 
and reigned. Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. cxlvii) repeats the 
same story, and adds that the town was captured by the Tartars in 
1243, after a siege of twenty days. Pascalis of Victoria, who was 
martyred in Almalik in 1341, says that Urganth was Us, and that the 
body of Job was there {Analecta Francis.^ iii, 533). In Urganth we 
have no difficulty in recognizing Urfah^ which is believed by 
Mahommedans to be the Ur of the Chaldees (Badger, i, 331). Marco 
Polo (i, 47) writes the name of Erzerum, Arziron^ a form which 
Tournefort also uses, though he remarks (ii, in) that Arzerum is the 
correct form. Clavijo (78) uses the form Aseron^ and Maundevile 
(147) Artyroun. The Armenians called it Garin^ and the Greeks 
Theodosiopolis. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 267 

gone to its source, but there was so much snow that no one 
could go outside the beaten path. On the other side, to the. 
south of the mountains of the Caucasus, the Tigris takes 
its rise. 




[HEN we left Baachu, my guide went to Tauris^ to 
speak with Argun, taking my interpreter with 
him. But Baachu had me taken to a certain city 
called Naxua,^ which used to be (385) the capital of a great 
kingdom, and was a large and beautiful city ; but the 
Tartars have reduced it to nearly a desert. And there 
used to be in it eighty Hermenian churches ; but there are 
only two small ones now, for the Saracens have destroyed 
them. In one of these I kept the Christmas feast as well 
as I could, with our clerk. The next day the priest of the 
church died, and a bishop and XII monks from the moun- 
tains came to his funeral. All the bishops of the Her- 
menians are monks, as are those of the Greeks for the 
most part.^ This bishop told me that near there was the 



^ Taurinum, According to Persian historians, the town of Tauris, 
or Tabriz, was founded a.d. 792 (see Chardin, Voyages^ ii, 320 et seq.). 
Maundevile (149) refers to the " Cytie of Thauriso or Taxis." 

^ Or Nadjivan. The name is also written Nakhdjevan^ Neshewy^ 
and Neksh-djehan. Clavijo (80) writes the name I\/aujua. It is said 
to be Armenian nakhid-shevan^ "the first landing-place," and was 
thus called because Noah got out of the ark near where it stands. 
Armenians say it is the oldest town in the world. Persian writers 
state that it once had 40,000 houses, and was one of the largest and 
finest cities of Armenia (Chardin; ii, 297 et seq,). A resident of 
Erzerum writes to me that one is shown in the monastery of Nadjivan 
the tomb of Noah and his wife. Chardin, however, states (ii, 
318) that these are at a place called Maraut. See James Bryce, 
Transcaucasia^ 222. 

3 This is quite correct. Chardin (ii, 185) states that the Vertabied 
or Armenian bishops were usually taken from among the monks, 
though sometimes a secular priest was appointed, " for it must be noted 
that this dignity is only obtained with money." Among the Greeks 
the prelates are taken from among the monks or KaKoyepoi. The 
Papas or secular priests can only attain the dignity of Protopapa, 



268 JOURNEY OF 

church in which blessed Bartholomew and also blessed 
Judas Thadeus were martyred ;^ but the road was impas- 
sable on account of the snow. 

He told me also that they have two prophets : the first is 
Methodius the martyr,^ who was of their race, and he pro- 
phesied concerning the Ysmaelites, which prophecy has been 
fulfilled in the Saracens. The other prophet is called 
Acatron, who on his death-bed prophesied concerning the 
race of Archers to come from the north,^ saying that they 
would acquire possession of all the countries of the Orient, 
and that (God) would spare the Eastern kingdom so as to 
deliver unto them the kingdom of the West ; but our 
brethren, like the Catholic Franks, would not believe in them, 
and they (/.^., the Archers) would occupy the earth from 
the north even unto the south, and would come to Con- 
stantinople, and would occupy (386) the port of Constanti- 
nople ; and one of them, who would be called a sage, would 
enter the city, and seeing the churches and the ceremonies 

^ Friar Jordanus (4), describing Armenia the Greater, states that three 
of the apostles suffered martyrdom there — Bartholomew, Simon, and 
Judas. " I saw a prison in which the two latter apostles were kept ; 
and likewise springs of water which they produced from the living 
rock, smiting it with a rod, . . . and hard by there was a church 
built, beauteous and of wonderful bigness." St. Judas Thadeus was 
martyred, it is believed, at a place called Maku, on Persian territory 
west of Nadjivan. There is a monastery of St. Thadeus about twenty 
miles from Maku (see also Acta Sanctorum^ 27 October, 440). As 
to the place of the martyrdom of the apostle Bartholomew, great 
uncertainty reigns. Some writers have placed it in India, others in 
Persia ; the weight of testimony seems to favour the town of Albana 
or Albanopolis in Albania, on the shore of the Caspian {Acta Sanc- 
torum^ 27 August, 30). Some writers, among others de Morgan 
{pp. cit., i, 13), identify Albana with Derbend. No work I have been 
able to consult places the scene of the martyrdom of the two saints in 
or even near the same place. 

2 The works of Saint Methodius are well known to Armenian 
scholars. A complete edition of them is now being published by the 
Fathers of St. Lazarus at Venice. 

3 The prophecy here attributed to Acatron (or one of identical 
tenor) is stated by some Armenian historians to be due to the patriarch 
Narses, who was Catholicos of the Aghuanks from a.d. 1236 to 1263 
(Dulaurier, 210). The Armenian historians of the thirteenth century 
habitually refer to the Mongols as " the Archers." 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 269 

of the Franks would be baptised, and he would tell the 
Franks how to kill the lord of the Tartars, and how to 
confound them. On learning this the Franks of the centre 
of the world, that is Jerusalem, would fall upon the Tartars 
in their borders, and with the help of our people, that is 
the Hermenians, would pursue them, so that the King of 
the Franks would place his royal throne in Tauris in 
Persia, and then all the Orientals and all the infidels would 
be converted to the faith of Christ, and there would be 
such peace on earth that the living would say to the dead : 
" Woe is you, unfortunate ones, why lived ye not to these 
times ?" 

I had read this prophecy in Constantinople, brought there 
by the Hermenians who live there, but had paid no particular 
attention to it ; when I had had this conversation, however, 
with the bishop, it came back vividly to my memory ; and 
throughout Hermenia they hold this prophecy as sure as 
the Gospel. They used also to say to me : " As the souls in 
limbo expect the coming of Christ for their liberation, so 
we look to your coming to deliver us from this bondage in 
which we have so long been." 

Near this city are mountains in which they say that 
(387) Noah's ark rests ; and there are two mountains, the 
one greater than the other ; and the Araxes flows at their 
base ; and there is a town there called Cemanum, which 
interpreted means " eight," and they say that it was thus 
called from the eight persons who came out of the ark, 
and who built it on the greater mountain.^ Many have 



1 Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. xcvii, 440^) says that near the 
city of Ain (Ani) is Mount Arach. " Here rests Noah's ark, and at 
the foot of this mountain is the first (of all) cities, which Noah built 
there, and he called the city Laudumie^ and around it flows the river 
Arathosi (Araxes), which flows through (the plain of) Mongan, where 
the Tartars winter, and into the Mare Servanicum (Caspian Sea)." 
Maundevile (148) speaks of "the cytee of Dayne, that Noe founded." 
Dayne may be the Laudumie of Vincent. Clavijo (80) says the city 
of Calmarin (Etchmiadzin ?) was the first built in the world, " and it 



270 JOURNEY OF 

tried to climb it, but none has been able. This bishop 
told me that there had been a monk who was most 
desirous (of climbing it), but that an angel appeared to 
him bearing a piece of the wood of the ark, and told him 
to try no more. They had this piece of wood in his church, 
they told me. This mountain did not seem to me so very 
high, that men could not ascend it. An old man gave me 
quite a good reason why one ought not to try to climb it. 
They call the mountain Massis, and it is of the feminine 
gender in their language. " No one," he said, " ought to 
climb up Massis ; it is the mother of the world."^ 



was built by the lineage of Noah." In another passage (82) he 
describes the ruins he saw at the foot of Ararat, and which were a 
league in length, and were the remains of a city founded by Noah and 
his sons. The MSS. write this name in different ways — Cemanium^ 
Cemaurum^ and Cemanum, I have adopted the last form, as it 
approximates more closely the Arabic Temanin^ the name given by 
early Mohammedan writers to the town built here by Noah. Ibn 
Haukal (60) says that at the foot of the mountain on which Noah's ark 
rested is a village called Themabim^ " and they say that the companions 
of Noah descended here from the ark and built this village." Masudi 
(i, 75) has it that Noah and his family, in all eighty persons, on coming 
out of the ark built a town which they called Tetnanin (eighty), a name 
which it retained to Masudi's time. 

Jordanus (4) describing Ararat, speaks of a dwelling on it which 
Noah is said to have built on leaving the ark ; and " there, too, is 
said to be that original vine which Noah planted, and whereby he got 
drunk." Yule identifies it with the village of Arguri, the only one on 
Ararat, which name means " He planted the vine " {argh urri). 
Q\i?iX^\w {Voyages^ ii, 193) says that at the foot of Ararat, in a Christian 
village, is a monastery called Arokilvane^ or " the Monastery of the 
Apostles," which the Armenians revere especially, believing that 
Noah made there his first residence and his first sacrifices after the 
deluge. (See also Chabot, op. cit.^ 52, note.) 

^ Isidorus {op. cit.^ xiv, 521) says that pieces of the timbers of the 
ark are still seen on Mount Ararath. Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. 
xcvii, 440^) tells this legend differently. He says Arach has never 
been scaled but once by a certain monk, who had previously tried 
many times. An angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him to 
try again. He did so, reached the summit, and brought back with 
him a piece of the ark. He then built a monastery at the foot of the 
mountain, in which the piece of wood was placed and worshipped 
like a holy relic. Chardin {pp. cit.^ ii, 191) tells the legend exactly as 
our traveller does. He adds that the monk was called James, that 
he was from the ^reat monastery of Etchrniad?:in, near Erivai^, an4 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 2/ 1 

In that city (of Naxua) Friar Bernard of Catalogna, of 
the Order of Preaching Friars, found me ; he had remained 
in Georgia with a certain prior of the Holy Sepulchre, 
who had large holdings in land there ; and he had learned 
a little Tartar, and had been with a certain friar from 
Hungary to Argun at Tauris, to ask leave to go through . 
to Sartach. When they came there they were refused entry, 
and the Hungarian friar went back by way of Tefilis with 
a servant ; but Friar Bernard had remained at Tauris with 
a German lay brother, whose language he did not under- 
stand. 

(388) We only left this city (of Naxua) on the Octave of 
the Epiphany (13th January), for we were kept there a 
long while on account of the snow. In IIII days we came 
to the country of Sahensa, once the most powerful Curgian 
prince, but now tributary to the Tartars, who have de- 
stroyed all its fortified places. His father, Zacharias by 
name, had got this country of the Hermenians, for 
delivering them from the hands of the Saracens.^ And 
there are very fine villages there, all of Christians and 

that he became Bishop of Nizibe, and was canonised. I am told 
that a piece of the ark is still shown in the monastery of Nadjivan. 
Bryce {op, city 321) says it is in the treasury of Etchmiadzin. 

Massis is the Armenian name of Ararat, and the monks on the 
mountains still tell travellers that the mountain cannot be scaled 
because it is the cradle of the human race, so a man can no more 
reach its top than re-enter his mother's womb. Maundevile (148) 
speaks of " Ararathe which the Jewes clepen Tanuz." Rubruck was 
misinformed about the gender of this word, as inanimate objects 
have no gender in Armenian (see also Chardin, ^^. cit^ ii, 189 ; and 
Klaproth, Jour, Asiat.^ ii, 301-304 ; conf. also Marco Polo, i, 47). 
The first recorded ascent of Ararat was made in 1829 by Prof. 
Parrot ; he gives its altitude as 17,325 ft., while Chodzko made it 
16,916 (Bryce, op, cit., 225). 

^ Sahensa is the Shahenshah prince of Ani of Georgian and Armenian 
chroniclers. He was son of Zacharias (or Zakhar^) and nephew of 
John (or Ivand), Constable of Georgia. The family was of Armenian 
(Orpelian) descent. He was a favourite of the Queen of Georgia, 
Rusudan. After the capture and destruction of Ani in 1239, he had to 
serve with the Mongol troops. He and the other Georgian princes 
were present at the siege and capture of Erzerum in 1242 or 1243 
(Klaproth, op,cit,y 196, 202 ; and Dulaurier, 216, 231, 241, et seq,). 



272 JOURNEY OF 

having churches, just like the French ; and every 
Hermenian has in his home, in the most honoured spot, a 
hand of wood holding a cross, and he places a burning 
lamp before it ; and what we do with holy water to drive 
away the evil spirit, they do with incense. For every 
evening they burn incense, carrying it to every corner of the 
house to drive out every kind of evil.^ 

I took a meal with this Sahensa ; and he showed me 
great politeness, as did his wife and his son called 
Zacharias, a very fine and prudent young man, who asked 
me, whether if he should come to you, you would keep him 
with you ; for so heavily does he bear the domination of 
the Tartars, that though he has abundance of all things, he 
would prefer to wander in foreign lands to bearing their 
domination.^ Moreover, they told me that they were sons 
of the Roman Church ; and if the lord Pope would send 
them (389) some assistance, they would themselves 
subject all the neighbouring countries to the Church. 

In fifteen days from that city (of Naxua ?) we entered the 
country of the Soldan of Turkie on the (second) Sunday of 



1 Armenian scholars whom I have consulted have not been able to 
give me any information concerning the hand holding the cross men- 
tioned by our author. Father Alishan thinks Friar William was 
misinformed. As to the custom of burning incense throughout the 
house, it is still observed by Armenians on Saturday nights, to 
drive away evil spirits. The same custom obtains in Greece. The 
Armenians, on Saturday night also, keep a lamp burning in a holy 
place. Perhaps the cross seen by our traveller was some kind of 
ickon^ before which the Greeks keep a lamp burning. 

2 The Armenian chronicles speak at length of this young Zakhard, 
son of Shahenshah. They say that in 1249 or 1250, when Avak 
Sarkis, son of Ivan^ (uncle of Shahenshah) died, his principality was 
given to Zakhard, but after a little while the Tartars took it away from 
him to give it to Vartoish-Kontsa, widow of Avak. Zakhare served 
at the head of the Georgian contingent in the Tartar army. He was 
present in 1258 at the capture of Bagdad, and rose high in Hulagu's 
favour on account of his courage. Somewhere about 1260 he was, 
however, accused of conspiring against the Mongols, and Hulagu 
had him quartered and his body thrown to the dogs. His father died 
of grief shortly after. (Klaproth, op. cit,^ 211 ; Dulaurier, 456, 488, 
502.) 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 273 

Quadragesima (15th February), and the first town we 
found was called Marsengen.^ All the people in the burg 
were Christians : Hermenians, Curges and Greeks. The 
Saracens had only the lordship. The castellan said that 
he had received orders not to give provisions to any Frank, 
or to ambassadors of the king of Hermenia or of Vastacius ; 
so from this place, which we reached on the (second) Sunday 
of Quadragesima, all the way to Cyprus, which I entered 
eight days before the feast of saint John the Baptist (i6th 
June) we had to buy our provisions. He who was guiding 
me procured us horses ; he received also money for our 
provisions, but he put it in his purse. When we came to 
some field and saw a flock, he would carry off a sheep by 
force, and give it to his followers to eat, and was greatly 
astonished because I would not eat of his theft. 




|N the (feast of the) Purification (2nd February) 

I was in a town called Aini, belonging to 

Sahcnsa, the position of which is very strong ; 

and there are in it a thousand churches of Hermenians 

and two synagogues ot Saracens.^ The Tartars have 

^ The traveller says he left Naxua on the 13th of January, 1255, and 
that he was in Sahensa's country {i.e., Ani) after four days^ or on the 
1 6th of January. Here he remained until after February 2nd, leaving 
there on the 3rd or 4th of February. In eleven days (/>., fifteen days 
in all from Naxua) he reached Marsengen, on the second Sunday of 
Quadragesima (15th of February). F. M. Schmidt (251) says he 
arrived in Marsengen on March 7th ; this, I suppose, is simply a 
slip of the pen. Marsengen is the modern Medshingert, between 
Kars and Erzerum. 

2 Ani was situated in the ancient Armenian canton of Shirag, a 
little above the confluence of the Akhurean or Arpachai, and the 
Rhah or Magazbert, an affluent of the Araxes. The town already 
existed in the fifth century, a.d. From a.d. 961 to 1045 i^ ^^s the 
capital of Armenia. In 1064 it was captured by the Seldjuk Turks, 
who lost it in 1124. It was entirely destroyed by an earthquake in 
1319 (Klaproth, ^/. a/., 194). Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. xcvii, 
440^) says : " In Armenia there is a noble city called Ain (Ani), 
where there are a thousand churches, and an hundred thousand families 



274 JOURNEY OF 

placed a bailiff^ in it. Five preaching friars found me 
there. Four of them had come from the Province of 
France, and the fifth had joined them (390) in Syria ; 
and they had only one infirm servant, who knew Turkish 
and a little French ; and they had letters from the lord 
Pope to Sartach,^ to Mangu Chan and to Buri, like those 
you gave me, requesting that they be allowed to stay 
in his country, and to preach the word of God, etc. 
When I had told them what I had seen, and how they 
had received me, they took the road to Tefilis, where are 
some of their friars, to hold council with them as to what 
they should do. I told them that, thanks to those letters, 
they could get through if they chose, but that they must 
provide themselves well with patience and with reasons for 
their coming, for having no other mission than preaching, 
they would show them scant courtesy, especially as they 
had no interpreter. What they did after this, I know not. 

dwell therein, and the Tartars took it after a twelve days' siege." It 
was captured by the Mongols in 1239 (Dulaurier, 237). The Armenian 
princes had built so many churches and chapels in it that it became the 
custom to swear by the thousand and one churches of Ani (Dulaurier, 
237). Clavijo (79) speaks of " the strong city called Auniqui." 

^ Ballivum. Probably a daruga^ as the Mongols called such officers. 
They were under the orders of a Mingatan or commander of a thousand 
(Hammer, Gold. Horde^ 238, and Deveria, Journ. Astat.^ ix® serie, 
viii, 104). 

*^ We learn from Raynaldus {Annales^ ii, 492-494), that on the i4th 
March, 1254, Pope Innocent IV wrote letters to the Sultan of Turkey 
by certain Dommican friars, exhorting him to become a Christian, 
and that on the 4th September of the same year he wrote to Sar- 
tach, whom he called Sattachi illustri Regi Tartarorutn^ congratu- 
lating him on his conversion to Christianity, of which he had learnt 
from "our beloved son John, a presbyter, and your chaplain, whom 
you sent to us bearing presents" (see also Remusat, J//;Wi?/>^, 61). 
It is just possible that the Dominicans whom our traveller met at Ani 
were the bearers of these letters. I have found no record of any 
letters of the Pope to Mangu and to Buri. Buri, by the way, had 
been put to death by Batu in 1252 {supra, p. 137) ; possibly we 
should read Batu instead. In 1253 Innocent IV had founded 
additional missions among the Comans, Iberians, Alans, the 
Ungarians of greater Hungary, etc. (Raynaldus, op. cit., ii, 489). 
The Dominicans had been established at Tiflis since 1240, when 
the Pope sent eight members of the order thither (Raynaldus, ii, 
246, 248) 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 275 

So on the second Sunday after Quadragesima (15th Feb- 
ruary) we came to the head of the Araxes, and after crossing 
a mountain, we came to the Eufrates, along which we de- 
scended for eight days, going always westward till we came 
to a certain fort called Camath.^ Here the Eufrates turns 
southward toward Halapia.^ We crossed the river, con- 
tinuing westward through very high mountains and deep 
snow. That same year there was such an earthquake there 
that in one city called Arsengen^x thousand persons known 
by name were lost (391), exclusive of the poor, of whom 
there was no record. During three days' ride we saw a 
rent in the ground as if split in the commotion, and masses 
of earth which had slid down from the mountains and 
filled the valleys : had the earth been shaken a little more, 
what Isaiah said would have been fulfilled to the letter : 
"Every valley shall be filled up, and every mountain and 
hill shall be made low."* 

We crossed the valley in which the Soldan of Turkic 
had been defeated by the Tartars. It would take too long 
to write how he had been defeated, but a servant of my 
guide, who had been with the Tartars (in the battle), said 
that there were not over x thousaad Tartars in all ; and 
a Curgian slave of the Soldan's said that there were with 
the Soldan two hundred thousand, all on horses. In that 



^ The Kdixaxa of Constantine Porphyrogeriitus (De Adminis.^ 226), 
the Kamkh of Edrisi, the Camag of CUvijo (73), the Kemakh or 
Gemash of modern maps (F. M. Schmidt, 251). Schiltberger (43) 
spells the name Kamach. He says it was situated on a high momitain, 
at the base of which flowed the Euphrates. This is the Kara Su, 
or western branch of the Euphrates. 

^ The Haleb of Mohammedan writers, our Aleppo. Some MSS. 
read Alapia^ but Halapia is the usual form found in western mediaeval 
works. 

3 The Arsinga of Clavijo (67). The modern Erzinghian, about 
thirty miles east of Gemash (Camath), on the Kara Su. 

* Isaiah, xl, 4. Here again our traveller does not quote the text 
correctly. He has " Omnis vallis implebitur." The Vulgate has, 
however, " Omnis vallis exaltabitur.^^ 

T 2 



276 JOURNEY OF 

plain in which that fight and that rout occurred, a large 
lake burst out in the earthquake ; and I said to myself 
that that whole country had opened its mouth to drink in 
the blood of the Saracens.^ 

We were in Sebaste in Lesser Hermenia in the Greater 
Week,2 and we visited there the sepulchre of the Forty 
Martyrs. There is at that place a church of saint Blaise, 
but I could not go there, for it was up in the citadel. On 
the Octave of Easter (4th April) we came to Cesarea of 
Capadocia, where there is a church of saint Basil the Great. 
After that in XV days {i.e., 19th April), we came to 
Yconium,^ travelling by short stages and resting in many 
places, for we could not get* horses very quickly. And my 
guide used to do this trick : he would sell (392) in every 



^ Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxx, ch. cl, 447^) says this battle was 
fought in the plains of Achsar, and that the Sultan had 50,000 men 
with him. Armenian historians say it was fought near a village called 
Acetshman-Gadug (Vincent's Achsar), in the plain between Erzerum 
and Erzinghian (Dulaurier, 429). The Sultan here referred to is 
Ghaiatheddin Keikosrew II. The battle was fought in 1243 or 1244. 
Baidju (Rubruck's Baachu) commanded the Mongol forces. Rashi- 
deddin calls the place of this celebrated battle, which put an end to the 
independence of the Kingdom of Rum, Kuseh-dag^ evidently the same 
as Consecirack^ the name given it by the historian Haithon (Quatre- 
m^re, 225 ; and Haithon, Hist. Orient.^ 33). This latter writer says 
that liaidju had a force of 30,000 men (see also d'Ohsson, iii, 80). 

-^ In 1255 Palm Sunday fell on March 21st, and Easter on the 28th. 
Sebaste is the modern Sivas. (}uillaume of Nangis (342) writes the 
n:axw^ Savastre. In 1281 Friar Marcus of Montefeltro built a house 
at Sivas for the Franciscans ''remaining among the Tartars" 
{Analecta Francis.^ ii, 96). Sivas was pillaged in 1244 by the Mongols, 
after the defeat of Ghaiatheddin. The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste 
suffered death in a.d. 320, in a pond outside the city. Their bodies 
were burnt and the ashes thrown in the river. I cannot find a 
record of any of these martyrs having been buried. The pool where 
they were martyred is still visited by pilgrims, and the Forty Martyrs 
are adored alike in the Greek, Armenian and Latin Churches {Acta 
Sanct.^ 10 March, 12-29 ; and Bedjan, Acta Marty, ct Sanct.^ ii, 325). 
St. Blaise was beheaded at Sivas, in a.d. 315. His feast is celebrated 
on February 3rd {Acta Sanct.^ 3 February, 342 ; see also Marco 
Polo^ i, 46). 

^ Guillaume of Nangis (343) writes the name Ycoine^ Joinville 
Coyne^ which is the more usual form in works of the period. It is the 
modern Konieh. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 277 

town his requisition on it for three days.^ I was much 
worried over this ; but I dared not speak, for he could 
have sold or killed me or our servants ; there would have 
been no one to say him nay. I found several P>anks in 
Yconium, and a Genoese trader from Aeon, Nicholas by 
name, from Santo-Siro, who with his partner, a Venetian 
called Benefatius de Molendino, had monopolised all the 
alum in Turkic, so that the Soldan could sell none of it to 
any save these two ; and they resold it so dear that what 
used to be sold for XV besants is sold for L.- 

My guide presented me to the Soldan. The Soldan said 
he would be pleased to have me taken to the sea of Her- 
menia or of Silicia.^ But this trader (Nicholas) knowing 
that the Saracens would take little care of me, and that I 
was wearied beyond measure with my guide's company, 
who pestered me daily for presents, had me taken to Curta, 
a port of the king of Hermenia.* Here I arrived the day 



^ Siunendo in qualibet villa procurationem sumn tribus diebus. He 
probably had an order from Baidju to supply Friar William with 
horses, food and lodgings. Chinese officials of the present day, 
travelling in Mongolia, are supplied with like orders, called ulapiao ; 
they frequently get paid in money, instead of taking the horses and 
supplies due to them (conf. supra, p. 258, 273). Purchas (51) trans- 
lates this phrase : " And my guide did this of purpose ; taking upon 
him to sollicite his owne business three days, in every Towne." 

2 Heyd {op. cif.^ i, 302) says of this Molendino that he probably 
belonged to the Venetian family of Molino, and this Bonifacius de 
Molendino must be the same as the " Bonifacius de Molinis de 
Venetiis," Condottiere in the service of the Sultan of Iconium at the 
time of the invasion of Asia Minor by the Tartars in 1242-43, of 
whom Sanuto speaks. Joinville (44) says that in his time, *Me soudanc 
du Coyne estoit le plus riche roy de toute la paennime." Jordanus (5) 
describes in detail the process of making alum as he saw it done in 
a camp on the coast of Turkey, held by a noble Genoese called 
Andreolo Cathani. 

^ One MS. reads Ecilie, which Vivien de St. Martin {Asie Mineure^ 
i, 494) thinks is the better reading, as it reproduces the name Itch-illi., 
by which the Turks called Cilicia. "Writing to St. Louis it seems 
hardly probable, however, that our traveller would have used the 
Turkish form. 

* Curta is the Corycus of classical writers, and was situated a little 
to the north of the Gok Su, on the coast of Cilicia. Writers of the 



278 JOURNEV OV 

before the Ascension (5th May), and remained to the day 
after Pentecost (17th May). Then I heard that messengers 
had come from the king (of Hermenia) to his father,^ so I 
put our things in a ship to be carried to Aeon, and I 
myself went at once to the king's father, to learn whether he 
had received any news from his son. I found him at Assis^ 
with all (393) his sons, save one called Barunusin,^ who 
was having a castle built ; and he had received messengers 
from his son (saying) he was coming back, and that Mangu 
Chan had greatly reduced the tribute for him, and that he 
had granted him the privilege that no ambassadors should 
enter his country ;^ on account of this the old man with all 
his sons and all his people were holding a great feast. He 
had me taken to the sea, to a port <:alled Auax f and from 
there 1 passed over into Cyprus,^ and at Nicosia I found 
your Provincial," who the same day took me with him to 



time of the Crusades called this place Curat. Barbaro calls it Curco. 
He visited it about the middle of the fifteenth century, and says (44) : 
*' It is a castell both stronge and faire and well wrought, though at 
this present it be greatly decaied." 

* When Heythum left in 1254 for Mangu's court, he committed the 
regency of Little Armenia to his father Constantine, and to his two 
sons, Levan (Lewis) and Thoros (Theodore) (Klaproth, op. cit.^ 214). 

'^ Sis in Cilicia, the capital of Little Armenia. 

3 Baron Oschin was the son of Heythum, according to most writers 
(Dulaurier, 433). Father Alishan tells me, however, that he was his 
brother. 

^ This was a valuable concession (see supra., p. 248, note 2). We 
may note that no mention is made of the king having induced Mangu 
and his family to be baptised : a story which Haithon gives in his 
Hist. Orient.., 37, 39 (see supra., p. 239 ; also d'Ohsson, ii, 313). 
Maundevile (229), quoting possibly Haithon, says of Mangu that he 
" was a gode Christene man, and baptized." 

^ The Polos, when coming back from their first journey to the 
court of Kubilai, came to this port on the Gulf of Alexandretta. 
Marco Polo calls it Layas, and says that " whatsoever person would 
travel to the interior (of the East), merchants or others, they take 
their way by this city of Layas." Ayas is now an insignificant village 
(Yule, Marco Polo., i, 16, 43, 45). 

^ He reached Cyprus on the i6th June {supra^ p. 273). 

^ MinistrufH vcstruvi. Franciscans in Cyprus and those parts of 
Palestine which had been held by St. Louis, belonged probably to the 
Province of France. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 279 

Antioch, which is in a most dilapidated condition. We 
were there for the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul 
(29th June). Thence we came to Tripoli, where we held 
our chapter on the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin 
(15th August); and the Provincial ordered me to remain 
at Aeon, not allowing me to come to you, directing me to 
write you whatever I had to say by the bearer of these 
presents. Not daring to disregard my vow of obedience, 
I did as best I could and have written ; and I beg grace 
from your great kindness for what is said either too much 
or too little, or injudiciously or foolishly, as it comes from 
a man with little ability, and not accustomed to compose^ 
such long stories. 

May the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, 
keep your heart and mind. 

I would gladly see you and those particular friends'- I 
have in your kingdom ; so if it displeases not Your (394) 
Majesty, I would beg you to write to the IVovincial that 
he allow me to come to you, to return after a little while 
to the Holy Land. 



^ Dictare. Though in mediaeval Latin (Hctare rarely or never 
means ''to dictate," it may be that Friar William used it in that 
sense. The work as we have it shows that it was hastily written and 
badly revised. The frequent error of euvi for meujn seems to point 
to the report having been dictated. F. M. .Schmidt (166) is of opinion 
that it was. Yule {Marco Polo, i, 87) calls attention to the fact that 
many of the most notable narratives of the Middle Ages have been 
dictated instead of being written by their authors, and that in cases 
where it is impossible to ascribe this to ignorance of writing. He 
cites Joinville, Marco Polo, Odoric, Nicolo Conti, IbnBatuta, and the 
monk Haithon. Perhaps to this number we must add William of 
Rubruck. 

2 Amicos speciales. Some of the MSS. x^2lA spirituales. Purchas 
(51) has "spirituall friends." 




28o JOURNEY OF 

iOU must know of the Turks that not one man out 
of ten (among them) is a Saracen ; nearly all are 
Hermenians and Greeks, and (the country) is 
governed by children. For the Soldan who was defeated 
by the Tartars (as I have related) had as a legitimate wife 
an Iberian woman, by whom he had one son, a weakling, 
who he ordered should be Soldan (after him).^ By a 
Greek concubine, whom he gave (later on) to a certain 
powerful emir, he had another ; and he had yet another 
by a Turk ; and a lot of Turks and Turkemans conspired 
with this one to kill the sons of the Christian (women). 
They arranged, as I was told, that when they had gained 
the victory they would destroy all the churches, and put 
to death all those who would not become Saracens. He 
was, however, defeated, and many of his followers were 



^ Ghaiatheddin's favourite wife was his second ; her name was 
Thamar ; she was daughter of Rusudan, Queen of Georgia, and, if 
we are to believe the statements of Armenian historians about 
Rusudan, it is quite impossible to say who was Thamar's father 
(Dulaurier, 216, 427). Vincent of Beauvais (bk. xxxi, ch. xxvi, 45 1^) 
says that in October, 1245, Gaiasadin, Soldan of Turquie, died; and 
his son, whose name was Raconadius (Rokneddin), succeeded him. 
This child was the son of the daughter of a Greek priest. He left 
another son called Azadin (Azzeddin Kaikawus), born, it is said, of the 
daughter of a certain burgher or captain of Iconium ; and a third called 
Aladin (Alaeddin Kaikobad), by the daughter of the Queen of Georgia, 
who had been his wife. Raconadius was (at the time of his father's 
death) eleven years old, Azadin seven. Vincent then goes on to tell, 
at considerable length, of the rise to power of a certain Persian called 
Losyr (probably the Perwant^ of Mohammedan historians), who had 
been the deceased sultan's chancellor, and who, on (ihaiatheddin's 
death took as his wife the dead sultan's wife, the mother of Rokneddin, 
whom he placed on the throne, though Azadin (Aladin ?) had been 
designated by his father as his successor, and all the emirs had sworn 
him allegiance. This narrative agrees clearly with that of our traveller, 
the Losyr of Vincent being '* the powerful emir" of whom friar William 
speaks. Rubruck's Pacaster is Rokneddin. 

Deguignes {Histoire, ii, pt. Ii, 67, ct seq.) gives another account, 
and Hammer {Histoire^ i, 44) still another. I will not attempt to 
unravel the discrepancies in all these narratives. It suffices that 
Alaeddin dying in 1254 while on his way to Mangu's court, Azzeddin 
drove his brother Rokneddin out of the part of the kingdom which 
had been assigned him by the Mongol emperor, and for a while 
reigned alone in Turkey. 



FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 28 1 

killed. A second time he got together an army, and that 
time he was made prisoner, and is still kept in chains. 
Pacaster, the son of the Greek woman, has arranged with 
his half-brother^ that he shall be Soldan, for the latter is 
delicate, and they have sent him to the Tartars ; and this 
has angered his relatives on the side of his mother, the 
Iberian or Georgian woman. So it is that a child governs 
in Turkic without a treasure, with few soldiers and many 
enemies. The son of Vastacius (395) is delicate, and is at 
war with the son of Assan, who likewise is a youth, and 
under the yoke of the Tartars f so if the army of the 
Church were to come to the Holy Land, it would be very 
easy to conquer or to pass through all these countries. 
The King of Hungary has not at most XXX thousand 
soldiers. From Cologne to Constantinople is not over 
XL days in a cart. From Constantinople it is not so far as 
that to the country of the King of Hermenia. In times 
past valiant men passed through these countries, and 
succeeded, though they had most powerful adversaries, 
whom God has since removed from the earth.^ Nor should 
we (if we followed this road) be exposed to the dangers 



^ Pacaster^ filius Grece^ procuravit de filiastro suo quod soidanus sit. 
Purchas (52) renders this '' Pacaster the Sonne of the (}reeke Concu- 
bine procured of Filiaster, that he might be Soldan." 

*^ Theodore Lascaris 11 could hardly be called a youth in 1255, fo'* 
he was then thirty-four. He succeeded his father, John Vataces, in 
1254. He was a man of considerable ability and of a cultivated mind, 
but his health was ruined and his intellect affected by repeated attacks 
of epilepsy. He died in 1258 or 1259 (Finlay, History^ iii, 303, 321 ; 
Gibbon, vii, 360). Michel, the reigning sovereign of Bulgaria, ascended 
the throne in 1245 or 1246, when an infant. There was war between 
John Vataces and Bulgaria from 1245 ; it terminated in 1255 by the 
utter defeat of the Bulgarians (Finlay, iii, 309, et scg.). 

3 He refers to the march of Peter the Hermit and the Crusaders 
through Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria and Turkey in 1096. The 
" powerful adversaries" may either be the Bulgarians who, provoked 
by the massacres of their people by the Crusaders, defeated them at 
Nissa (Nisch) ; or the Turks who, in 1097, under Kilidjarslan, Sultan 
of Nicea, opposed so \igorously the advance of Godfrey of Bouillon 
and his army. 



282 JOURNEY OF FRIAR WILLIAM OF RUBRUCK. 

of the sea or to the mercies of the sailor men, and the 
price which would have to be given for a fleet would be 
enough for the expenses of the (whole) land journey.^ I 
state it with confidence, that if your peasants — 1 speak not 
of the princes and noblemen — would but travel like the 
Tartar princes, and be content with like provisions, they 
would conquer the whole world. 

J It seems to me inexpedient to send another friar to the 
Tartars, as I went, or as the preaching friars go ; but if the 
Lord Pope, who is the head of all Christians, wishes to 
send with proper state a bishop, and reply to the foolish- 
ness they have already written three times to the Franks 
(once to Pope Innocent the Fourth of blessed memory,'^ and 
twice to you : once by David, who (396) deceived you, and 
now by me), he would be able to tell them whatever he 
pleased, and also make them reply in writing. They listen 
to whatever an ambassador has to say, and always ask if 
he has more to say ; but he must have a good interpreter — 
nay, several interpreters — abundant travelling funds, etc. 



1 Rubruck probably had in mind the contract made by the Council 
of the fourth Crusade in 1201 with the Doge of Venice, to carry 
the army to the Holy Land. The sum agreed upon was about 
;£ 1 80,000 (Pears, Fall of Constafitinoplc^ 234). 

2 This is the letter of Kuyuk Khan, brought to Lyons by Friar John 
of Pian de Carpine, the text of which is in d'Avezac, op. cit.^ 594. 




INDEX. 



Aarserum, ihe cily oi, 266. See also 

Arseron and Erzerum. 
Aas. See Alans. 
Abazes or Abkhases, 12. See a- so 

Obesi. 
Ablutions, of Nestorians, 1 58 
Acatron, the Prophet, his prophecy 

concerning the Mongols, 268 
Aeon, city of, 178 ; William sends his 

luggage to, 278 ; ordered to remain 

at, 279 
Adultery, punishment of, 79 
Advocates, not allowed among the 

Mongols, 28 
Aini, town of, 273 ; William meets 

Dominicans there, 274 
Airan^ or sour milk, 61, 85 
Aladin, son of Sultan of Turkic, 280 
Ala Kul, lake, visited by Friar John, 

16 ; reached by William, 159 ; 

valley opening on, 160 ; route near, 

161 
Alania, limits of according to Isi- 

dorus, 93 
Alans, an officer of that nation, 4 ; 

the people of the, 12 ; the carts of 

the, 54 ; were a tribe of the T'ieh- 

le, 54 ; they do not drink cosmos^ 

87 ; also called Aas, 88 ; are not 

schismatics, 89 ; their history, 88, 

89 ; kindness to Friar William, 89 ; 

position of their country, 100 ; they 

pass through Sartach's camp, 116; 

brigandage by Alan slaves, 117; 

their method of divination, 196 ; 

in Summerkeur, 258 ; the mountains 

of the, 260; good armourers, 261 ; 

walled village of, 262 
Alayeddin Mohammed, Sultan, 15 
Albania, its limits, 120 
Albericus Trium Fontium, describes 

the Mongols, xiii ; quoted, 131 
Albert of Bollstaedt, his views on 

the Caspian, xxxvii 
Alexander, son of Yaroslaw, called 

to Mongol court, 25 
Alexander the Great, builds walls 

in the Caucasus, xvii, 263 ; builds 

the Iron Gale, 100, 262 ; the Huns 

cross this barrier, 130 



Aloha, Duke, met by Friar John, 31 

Altai mountains, 161 

Alti Soldan, the, 14, 15. See also 
Khorazm Shah. 

Alum, trade in, monopolised in 
Yconium by two Italians, 277 

Ambassadors, to Mongols should 
have rich presents, 2 ; at Mongol 
court, 20 ; Mongols never make 
peace with nation killing theirs, 
30 ; number of at election of Kuyuk, 
38 ; Ambassadors only may travel 
in Tartar country, 48 ; badly treated 
by Mongols, 95 ; who receives 
them, loi ; Heythum of Little 
Armenia exempted from Mongol, 
278 ; William's advice as to, 282 

Ammoric, instruments from, 178, 
179 

Andrew, Friar, acts as interpreter for 
St. Louis, xxvii ; his first visit to 
Mongols, xxviii ; mission to Kuyuk's 
court, xxix ; returns to Caesarea, 
xxx ; report on Mongols by, xxxi ; 
routefollowedby, xxxii ; no mention 
of in Franciscans' works, xli ; visits 
Keu Khan, no; mentions Teuton 
slaves at Talas, 136 ; says Keu 
Chan died poisoned, 163 ; Mangu 
emperor at time of his arrival, 163; 
impostor "who accompanied him 
from Cyprus, 178; William tells 
Mangu's secretaries about, 229 ; 
why he should have passed between 
fires, 240 

Andronikos Ghidos, 47 

Angels, build temple near Kersona, 

43 
Am, town of, 273. See also Aini. 
Antichrist, the Mongols his soldiers, 

xvi 
Antimensium, used by Nestorians, 

Antioch, Friar Andrew starts from, 
xxxii ; capture of by Franks, 108 ; 
in dilapidated condition, 279 

An-ts'ai. See Alans. 

Appeals, how made, 79 

Arabic, book in, belonging to William, 
260 



?84 



INDEX. 



Arabuccha, brother or Mangu, 222 ; 
owns his mother's ordu, 223 ; makes 
sign of the cross, 223 ; stops quarrel 
between Sergius and Saracens, 
224 

Aral, lake, not known to Kriar John 
and contemporaries, 37, 131 

Ararat, country of, 264; Mount, 
269 ; no one able to climb it, 270 ; 
called Massis by Armenians, 270 

Araxes, the river, 264 ; empties into 
the Cur, 265 ; Virgil quoted con- 
cerning, 265 ; William ascends it to 
source, 266 ; flows by foot of Ararat, 
269; William reaches source, 275 

A?'bay two- wheeled Tartar cart, 49 

Arcacc, plain of, 261 

Arcali^ or Ovis Poli, 69 

Archdeacon, of Nestorians, 185 

Archers, the nation of, 268 

Arghun aka, 191 ; superintended 
tribute in Asia Minor, 265 ; Domi- 
nicans visit him, 271 

Arik Buga, 184 

Ark, Noah's, rested on Ararat, 269 ; 
piece of, preserved in church, 270 

Armaloch, a place in Persia, xxvii 

Armenia, the Greater, 166 ; also 
called Ararat country, 264 

Armenians, the, 12 ; their crosses, 
104 ; as interpreters, 105 ; use of 
holy oil, 105 ; hate the Saracens, 
166 ; monks at Mangu's court, 
168; their fast of St. Serkis, 186; 
bishops are monks, 267 ; expelling 
evil spirits with holy water. 272 

Armour, on horses and mules, 24 ; 
of Mongols, 261 

Arms of Mongols, xvi ; manufactured 
by Teuton slaves, 137 ; few arms, 
261 ; description of, 261, 262 

Army, of Mongols on border of 
Russia, 34 

Arrows, blunt ones shot at intruders, 
19 ; with silver whistles as heads, 
180 ; Mongols carry files to sharpen, 
262 

Arsengen, town of, 275 

Arseron, city of, 181. See also 
Aarserum. 

Ascar, son of Vastacius, 47 

Ascelin, Friar, sent on mission to 
Mongols, xxiv ; his treatment at 
Ilchikadai's camp, xxv, 6 ; return 
to Europe, xxv 

Aspareh, town of, 139, . 

Assan, land of, 47 ; origin of name, 
47 ; is occupied by the Blacs, 130 ; 
condition of country, 281. See also 
B'akia. 



Assassins, the, 118. See also 

Hacsasins. 
Asses, wild, 69 
Assis, town of, 278 
Astronomy, diviners' knowledge of, 

240 
Atel, town of, 258, 259 
Auax, port of Little Armenia, 278 
Audience, of Friar John with Kuyuk 

Khan, 23 ; of Friar William with 

Sartach, 103 ; with Batu, 123-125; 

with Mangu, 171- 175 
Austria, invaded by ^longols, xx 
Avars, Khan of the, his letter to 

Maurice, 174 
Axasins, the, position of country, 

118. See also Hacsasins. 
Axes demanded as tribute by 

Mongols, 47 
Azzeddin, Sultan of the Turks, 248, 

280 

B, the letter, Tartars cannot pro- 
nounce, 130 

Baachu, Mongol General in Armenia, 
265 ; his conquests, 265 ; William 
received by him, 266 ; sends 
William to Naxua, 267 

Baatu, the Mongol prince, 15; cap- 
tains of Sudak on mission to, 48 ; 
revenue derived by, from salt works, 
52 ; his village on the Tanais, 96 ; 
orders Berka to beyond the Etilia, 
117; camps east of the Etilia, 
121; his movements, 121, 259; 
audience of, 123 ; description of 
him, 123, 124; orders Friar 
William to go to Mangu. 126 ; 
Friar accompanies Baatu for five 
weeks, 126 ; informed by Coman 
about Franciscans, 128 ; size of his 
horde, 128 ; more powerful than 
Mangu, 138; called by Keu Chan 
to do homage, 163 ; his fear of Keu 
Chan, 163 ; contents of his letter to 
Mangu, 166 ; William reaches his 
camp on return journey, 254, 257 ; 
builds Sarai, 256 ; audience with, 

257 ; remains with him a month, 

258 ; gives William a guide, 258. 
See also Bati and Batu. 

Babylon, Sultan of. Friar John 
travels in company with his envoy, 

39 
Badger-skins, given to Batu, 35 
Baghdad. See Baldach. 
Bairam, feast of, 143 
Bajothnoy, the Mongol General, 

265. See also Baachu. 
Bal^ or honey mead, 173, 208 



INDEX. 



285 



Bala^ the prothonotary, 27 ; translates 
letter of Emperor to the Pope, 28 

Baldach, city of, 15 ; Caliph of, 20 ; 
Nestoriai^ patriarch of, 215 ; brother 
of Mangu sent against, 222 ; his 
envoys ride in mule litters, 247 

Baldakins, costumes of, 19, 37 ; 
lining of tent, 22 ; presented to 
Emperor, 23 ; worn by Friar John 
at Kuyuk's court, 38 ; tunics of, 71 

Baldwin II, the Emperor, his mis- 
sion to the Comans, xxxiii 

Baldivin of Hainaut, xxxiii, 102 ; 
married to a Coman princess, 
xxxiii ; his mission to Mongol 
court, xxxiv ; gives information to 
Friar William, xxxiv ; his remarks 
on rivers of Central Asia, 196 

Balkash, lake, 140 ; plain south of 
it well watered, 140 ; head of, 
reached, 159 

Baltu, son of Mangu, 184 ; visit to, 
189 ; his wives, 189 ; worships the 
cross, 189 ; has a Nestorian master, 
189 ; drinks with priests, 190 

Barbaro, quoted on Goths of Crimea, 
51 ; on Tartar worship, 59 

Barbel, dried, sold at mouth of 
Tanais, 45 ; given traveller, 97 

Barchin, city of, 14 

Bare feet of Friars astonish Mongols, 
168 

Barhus, the, their deities, 60 

Barkhaiikend, town of, 14. Sec 
also Barchin. 

Bartholomew, Saint, place of 
martyrdt)m, 268 

Bartholomew of Cremona, I'riar, 
accompanies Friar William, 50 ; 
insists on accompanying him tt) 
Mangu's camp, 126 ; sutfers from 
hunger, 127 ; recognized by Greek 
knight, 170 ; enfeebled ctmdition 
of, 174 ; hits threshold of Emperors 
tent, 189 ; forbidden to enter Chan's 
dwelling, 192 ; suffers from scanty 
food, 206 ; asks to remain in Mon- 
golia, 251 ; money given him by 
Mangu, 253 ; lakes leave of 
William, 254 

Barunusin, son of King of Little 
Armenia, 278 

Bascarts, the, 12 ; are the ancient 
Ungari. 36. See also Bashkirds 
tf;/£/ Great Hungary. 

Bashkirds, their customs, 61 ; their 
country, 129 See also Pascatir. 

Bashkurt, the, 12. See also Bascarts. 

Basil the Great, Saint, church of, at 
Caesarea, 276 



Basil, son of an Englishman, 211, 223 

Batharcan, the Mongol Prince, 15. 
See Batu. 

Batho. See Batu. 

Bati, a safe-conduct from, for Daniel 
of Galitch, 2 ; Friars sent to him by 
Corenza, 8 ; his country, 8 ; arrival 
of Friar John at his camp, 9 ; 
audience of, 10 ; has Pope's letters 
translated, 10 ; description of his 
court, 10; his character, 11 ; Friar 
John returns to his camp, 31 ; his 
camp on the Volga, 34 ; the presents 
given him, 35 ; sends mission to 
Kuyuk. See also Baatu and Batu. 

Batoth. Se^ Batu. 

Batu, invades Hungary, xviii ; returns 
to Mongolia, xx ; sent against the 
Alti Soldan, 14 

Beads, used by priests, 146 

Beaver- skins, given Friar John, 3 ; 
given to Batu, 35 

Beibars, Sultan, audience granted 
his envoys by Berka, 125 

Bela IV, King, his defeat at Pesth by 
Mongols, xix ; Pope encourages him, 
xix ; second letter from Pope, xx 

Belar, the. ^SV^Bilers. 

Belevile, near Rouen, 222 

Belgrade, in Hungary, 222 

Bells, little used by Nestorians, 166 ; 
in idolaters' temples, 144 ; not used 
by Eastern Christians, 144 

Benedict, Friar, xxiii ; his death, 
xxvii ; his narrative of Friar John's 
mission, 33-39 ; joins the mission 
in Poland, 33 

Benefatius de Molendino, living in 
Vconium, 277 

Berdagj, country of, 12. See also 
Brutaches. 

Berka, a brother of Batu, his country, 

. 117 ; his religion, 117 ; his recep- 
tion of Sultan Beibars' envoys, 125 ; 
founds Sarai, 260 

Bernard of Catalogna, meets 
William at Naxua, 271 

Bernardino of Escalanta, quoted on 
missions to China, 165 

Bezant. Scd Vperpera. 

Bible, misquoted by Friar William, 40, 
275 ; examined by Mangu, 185, 189 

Bli^ni or Bigum. .SVc Rice Wine. 

Bilers, the, a people living near the 
Voljra, 12, 121 ; are P^ans, 36 ; 
their religion, 121. vSV^aAc^Bulgars. 

Bisermins, country of the, 13 ; 
language of people, 14 ; their reli- 
gion, 14 ; ruined cities, 14 ; great 
river, 14 ; term how used, 49 



286 



INDEX. 



Bishop, of Sudakjhad visited Sartach, 

49 
Bits, made by the men, 76 
Black Catay, explanation of name, 

109. See also Kara-Khitai. 
Black Kitayans, 15 ; they built Imil, 

16; mentioned by Henedict, 37 ; 

origin of, 109. •S'^'^a/j^ Kara-Khitai. 
Black Sea, earliest use of name, 41. 

See also Mare Magnum and Pont us. 
Blacs, the, 47 ; pass through Sar- 

tach's camp, 116; appear with the 

Huns, 130. See also Iliac. 
Blaise, St., church of, at Sebaste, 276 
Blakia, the country of, 47. See also 

Assan, land of. 
Blessing^s, sung before Sartach, 104 ; 

over Emperor s cup, 182, 188 
Board, beating a, by Nestorians, 116, 

184 
Boats, of ox-hide used by Mongols, 

XV ; on Tanais, 96 ; bridge of, 265 
Bocca^ head-dress of Mongol women, 

73 ; CotataCaten removes her, 184 
Hogtak. See Bocca. 
Bohemia. King of, his advice to Friar 

John, I ; gives him letters to rela- 
tives in Poland, 2 ; Franciscans in, 

128 
Bohemians, their language, 130 
Bolar, city of, 12. See also Bulgar. 
Bolat, town of, 137 ; Friar William 

passes near it, 138 ; person from, 

tells William of Cierman priest, 225 
Boleslas, Duke of Selesia, 2 
Bombay, cloth of. See Cotton. 

ook of Kings, quoted, 264 
Borakchin, wife of Batu, 123 
Borassyts, the, 12. See alsj Parro- 

sits. 
Bows, manufactured by the men, 76 ; 

Mangu sends bow and arrows to 

King of Franks, 180; used by 

Mongols, 261 
Brands, wives of Keu Chan whipped 

with burning, 164 ; woman whipped 

with, 245 
Bread, offered in temples, 143 ; 

offered to Emperor by Nestorians, 

212 ; holy bread of Nestorians, 214 
Breslau, Friar Benedict joins mission 

at, Zl 
Brother of Mangu, knew the 

Gospels, 213 
Brutaches, the, 12 
Buccaran. See Btikeram. 
Buchier, Laurent, father of William, 

177 
Buchier, Roger, lived on Grand 
Pont in Paris, 177 



Buchier, William, goldsmith at Kara- 
korum, 177; his adopted son, 177; 
work he was doing for Emperor, 
178; William writes to him, 178; 
his friend Bulgai, 187 ; sends cruci- 
fix to Bulgai, 207 ; fountain built 
by, in palace at Caracarum, 208 ; 
William dines with, 211 ; his 
wife, 211 ; gives William iron for 
wafers, vestments, etc., 215 ; his 
scholarship, 215 : his oratory, 
215 ; his illness, 216 ; was a slave 
of Arabuccha, 222 ; how captured, 
222 ; first belonged to Mangu's 
mother, 223 ; Mangu's present to, 
223 ; acts as chief butler at feast, 
247 ; William stops in house of, 
253 ; his presents to King Louis, 

254 

Buddhism, at Cailac, 142 ; in Mon- 
golia, 145, 233 

Btikeram^ tunics Oi, 71, 74; hats of, 
153 ; Cotata Caten gives a piece of, 
185 ; its value, 186 

Bulgai, the secretary, questions 
William, 168 ; fasts on Fridays, 
187 ; condemns persons to death, 
189 ; inquires into Bartholomew's 
offence, 192 ; examines all foreigners 
in Caracarum, 221 ; searches for 
Assassins, 222 ; Friar Bartholomew 
asks him for leave to remain in 
Mongolia, 251 

Bulgar, of the Volga, 12 ; people 
are Mahommedans, 122. See also 
Bilers. 

Bulgar, town of, 121 

Bulgaria, Greater, 12, icx), 129 ; furs 
from, 70 ; Etilia comes from, 118 ; 
cities of, 121 ; Pascatir lies to east 
of it, 129; Bulgars come from, 130; 
rules over Pascatir, 131. See also 
Bilers. 

Bulgaria, Minor, 47 ; people of, 
pass by Sartach's camp, 116 

Bulgars, invade Europe with the 
Huns, 130 

Bull, gold, badge of authority, 
181 

Buri, son of Cbagatai, story of his 
death, 136 ; his quarrel with Batu, 
137 ; Dominicans bearing letters 
to, 274 

Buriats, their worship, 59 

Burin, a Mongol chief, 1 5 

Burithabet, country of, 151 

Burning of dead by Uigurs, 147 

Bussurman, the country of the, 13. 
See also Bisermins. 

Butter, its preparation, 68 



INDEX. 



287 



Cachs, the, 12. See also Kakhethi, | 

people of. 
Cadan, a Mongol chief, 15 
Caesarea, in Cappadocia, xxx, xxxii ; 

William arrives at, 276 
Cailac, town of, 139, 140 ; temples 

in, 142 ; departure from, 159 ; 

secretary of Baatu waited for at, 166 
Cairo. See Babylon. 
Caxnath, the fort of, 275 
Camels, richly caparisoned, presei>ted 

to Emperor, 24 ; drawing carts, 57 ; 

looked after by the men, 76 
Camps, how pitched, 56 ; positions 

in, assigned to each one, 239 
Camus, wife of Keu Chan, 250. See 

also Ogul Gaimish. 
Cangle, the, 13 ; position of country, 

118 ; origin of name and history of, 

119 ; extent of their country, 129 ; 
are a branch of the Comans, 129 ; 
length of journey through their 
country, 131. See also Comans, 
Kangitae, afid Kankali. 

Camiibalism, charge of, against 
Mongols, 64 ; against Tibetans and 
Chinese, 152 

Canov, town of ; arrival at, 4 

Capchat. See Comans and Kipchak. 

Capital punishment, when imposed, 

79 
CaptargaCy or pouch, 65, 66 
Captives, terrible condition of, 176, 

177 
Caracarum, where situated, iii, 
149 ; the Mongols' royal city, 116 ; 
great idol at, 144; many Cat hayans 
at, 156 ; snow at, 170 ; Friar 
William allowed to visit, 175 ; 
Mangu goes toward, 196 ; palace 
at, 207 ; buildings in, 207 ; great 
fountain in palace at, 208 ; arrival 
at, 211; market, church, 211 ; 
Europeans found in, 211 ; size of 
city, 220; Saracen and Cathayan 
quarters, 221 ; Chan returns to, 247 ; 
learned Nestorian monk arrives at, 
253 ; William returns to, 253 
Caracatayans. See Kara-Khitai. 
Caraiosfnos, by whom drunk, 67 ; | 

is clarified mare's milk, 173, 208 
Carnival of Eastern Christians, 202 I 
Carp eaten at Nestorian feast, 186 I 
Carpenter work, done by the men, 76 
Carrion, eaten by Mongols, 63, 64 1 
Carts, used by Friar William, 49 ; 
by Russian traders, 49 ; carrying 
tents, 54, 55 ; number of, in Mon- 
gol camp, 56, 57 ; sacred images 
carried in, 59 



Caspian mountains, 118 

Caspian Sea, the, P>iar Andrew 
skirts, xxxii ; early notions con- 
cerning, xxxvii ; 36, 129 ; Etilia 
empties into, 100, 118; mountains 
around it, 119 ; has no outlet, 119, 
T20; river Jagac empties into it, 
129. See also Sirsan, Sea of. 

Cassaria. See Gazaria. 

Cataia, stuffs from, brought to the 
Mongols, 70 

Catan, a Mongol chief, 8 

Caten, a Mongol title, 184 

Cathay, gigantic idol in, 144 ; identi- 
fied with country of Seres, 155 ; 
provinces of, 155 ; distance of from 
Mangii's camp, 196 ; priests from, 
196, 198 ; their stories, 199, 200 ; 
its position, 200 ; money of, 201 ; 
writing of, 201 ; description of 
writing, 202 ; Mangu sends his 
brother against, 222 ; priest from, 
discusses with William, 231 ; rein- 
carnate lama from, 231 ; bishop of 
Nestorians in, 244 

Cathayans, live in the east, 109 ; are 
small, 155 ; their speech, 156; are 
good artisans, 156 ; sons follow 
father's business, 156; their tribute 
to the Mongols, 1 56 ; their medical 
knowledge, 156; their quarter in 
Caracarum, 221 

Cattle, of the Tanguts, 151 ; of the 
Muc, 154 ; die from cold, 170 

Caucasus mountains, 135 ; nations 
living in, 157 

Caule, the, tribute they paid Mon- 
gols, 201 

Cemanum, the town of, 269, 270 

Ceremonial at Mongol prince's 
court, 7 ; at Bati's court, 9, 10 ; 
at election of Emperor, 19, 21 ; at 
audience of Friar John with Em- 
peror, 23 ; Emperor listened to 
kneeling, 28 ; as regards steps lead- 
ing to throne, 38 ; horses left at dis- 
tance from tent, 167; followed by 
William at audience with Mangu, 
171, 172 et seq. 

Cervoise, different varieties of, 62, 166 

Chanii or diviner, 108, 109, 239 

Chapels, Christian, on carts, xxxi ; 
at Mangu's camp, 168 

Charmagan, the Mongol General, 
265 

Charms, to keep off devils, 162 ; to 
make one love, 244 

Chase, Mongol mode, 71 

Chaur Bigui, daughter of Unc chan, 
115 



288 



INDEX. 



Cherkesses, their country, loo. See 
also Kerkis. 

Cherneglove, Duke of, met by Friar 
John, 31 

Chests, of wickerwork, 55 ; used by 
Mongols to carry bedding and 
valuables, 56 

Chichegan, daughter of Chingis 
Khan, 149 

Childbirth, position of Mongol women 
in, 75 

Chimkent, town of, xxxii, 14. See 
also lanckint. 

Chinchin, the, story of, 199, 200 ; 
origin of story, 200 

Chingay, the prothonotary, 23, 27 ; 
translates letter of Emperor to the 
Pope, 28 

Chingis Khan, comounded with 
King David, xiii ; Friar Andrew's 
report on, xxxi ; his ordinances, 
79 ; his title of First father, 82 ; 
first to use title of Khan, 108 ; his 
history, 114; defeats Unc chan, 
115; his wife, 115; his sons and 
descendants, 133 ; marries his 
daughter to King of Uigurs, 149 ; 
captured by the Tanguts, 150 ; his 
ordu in Onankerule, 196 ; all 
must serve him while able, 199 ; 
explanation of his name, 249 

Chirenen. See Siremon. 

Choir, in idolaters' temples, 144 

Choranza. See Corcnza. 

Christians, among the Mongols, 
xxvii ; alKuyuk'sCourl, 29 ; in the 
Crimea, 36 ; do not drink cosmos^ 
87 ; amcmg the Mongols, 89 ; Nes- 
torians' exaggeration about, no; 
how treated by SarLach, 116; al 
Cailac, 142 ; Uigurs arc, 147 ; at 
Mangu'scamp, 168 ; al Caracarum, 
213, 214; hold service on Easier 
eve, 216 

Chu, river, xxxii, 138, 139 

Chu ch^uan^ quoted in slory of the 
Chinchin, 200 

Chuguchak, town of, 16 

Church, Christian, in Caracarum, 

221, 252 
Churches, the, 152 
Circasses, the, 12 ; are Christians, 36 
Cirina, daughter of Mangu, 172 ; 
gives Nestorians drink, 186, 191 ; 
visit to, 190 ; she worships the 
cross, 191 
Clapping of hands, when guest 
drinks, 16, 63 ; as sign of amuse- 
ment, 124 ; as mark of respect, 
138 ; at Emperor's feast, 247 



Clement, Saint, where martyred, 42, 

43 
Climate, of Mongolia, 170, 183, 210 
Clothing, of Mongols, 70, 7 1 ; worn 
by Friar William on journey, 128 ; 
of priests at Cailac, 143, 145 ; of 
lugur priests, 146 ; of Longa and 
Solanga envoys, 153 ; of priests, 
158 ; of Armenian monk, 168 ; 
sent the travellers, 171 ; worn by 
Mangu Khan, 172 ; changed each 
day at feast, 247 

Coiac, a Nestorian secretary of Sar- 
tach, loi ; receives travellers, loi ; 
asks them to leave their vestments 
and books with him, 105, 106 ; 
William asks him to return vest- 
ments, books, etc., 256 ; gives 
William letter to his father, 256, 
257 ; his father restores property of 
William, 259 

Cologne, distance from, to Constanti- 
nople, 281 

Coloman, Prince, Gregory IX. en- 
courages him, XX 

Comania, its boundaries, 12 ; Tartar 
camp near border of, 34 ; Friar 
John's mission leaves it, 35 ; identi- 
fied with Pontus, 35 ; countries con- 
terminous with, 36 ; Friar William 
traverses it, 92 

Comans, conquered by the Mongols, 
xix ; Friar John crosses country of, 
8; rivers in their country, 8 ; killed 
or driven away by Tartars, 13 ; the 
Cangle Comans, 13 ; escort Friar 
John, 31 ; used tt) live in the Crimea, 
51 ; dispersed by the Tartars, 52 ; 
mortuary customs, 82; great number 
of tombs, 85, 94 ; called Capchat, 
92 ; identified with the Valans, 93 ; 
origin of name, 93 ; Comans Cap- 
chac, loi ; Baldwin of Hainaut 
marries princess of, 102 ; met at 
Batu's camp, 127 ; conversion by 
D(miinicans, 127 

Communion, administered by William 
to Jonas, 218 

Con cham, 108 ; he assists Turks 
against Franks, 109 ; his successor, 
no 

Concubines, of Mangu, 190 ; one of 
them ill, 245 ; how result of illness 
was ascertained, 245, 246 

Confession necessary before death- 
penalty can be carried out, 79 

Conies, eaten by Mongols, 69 

Conrad, Duke of Lenczy, 2 ; his ' 
presents to Friar John, 3 ; he assists 
mission, 33 



INDEX. 



289 



Constantinople, 12 ; traders from 
met at Kiew, 32 ; distance from to 
Gazaria, 42 ; traders from at Sudak, 
48 ; called villa^ 83 ; distance to 
Cologne, 281 

Corenza, a Mongol chief, 5 ; Friar 
John starts for his camp, 6 ; his 
forces, 6 ; his demands for presents, 
7 ; letters of Pope given him, 7 ; 
sends friars to Bati, 8 ; Friar John 
reaches his camp on return journey, 
31. See also Cvixomza.. 

Cosmas, a Russian goldsmith, 26 

Cosmos, or Kumiz, 62, 186, 266 ; 
much us^jed in summer, 63 ; its 
manufacture, 66 ; made by the men, 
76 ; Friar William first tastes it, 
85 ; not drunk by Christians, 87 ; 
valued by Mongols, 91 ; where 
placed in Batu's tent, 123 ; offered 
by Batu to honoured guests, 125 ; 
on bench in Mangu's tent, 172 ; 
sprinkled on felt idols, 222 ; feast 
when new cosmos is drunk, 242 ; 
quantity drunk in feast, 248 

Cosmos, a weight of silver, 1 56. See 
also lascot. 

Costumes of Mongol chiefs, 19 ; of 
Mangu, 172 

Cota, second wife of Mangu, 190; 
visit to, 190 ; her illness, 190, 192, 
193 ; gives Sergius presents, 194 ; 
teaches William Mongol, 194 ; her 
recovery, 195 ; has a relapse, 222, 
223 

Cotata Oaten, wife of Mangu, sends 
William clothing, 171 ; visits Nes- 
torian chapel, 184 ; distribute?; 
presents, 185, 203 ; ceremony when 
drinking, 186 ; gets tipsy, 186 ; 
fasts, 203 ; sends William presents 
during fast, 206 ; causes a Nes- 
torian and his wife to be put to 
death, 244 ; Mangu punishes her, 

245 

Cotton, cloths of, 44 ; sold at Sudak, 
44 ; brought from Cataia and 
Persia, 70 ; wadding of, 71 

Council of Lyons, approves of send- 
ing missions to Mongols, xxii ; 
object of council, xxii ; its action 
concerning Mongol invasion, xxiii 

Council, of chiefs at election of 
Emperor, xxi, 20 

Court, Friar William's first visit to 
Mangu's, 167 

CracOTV, Duchess of, makes presents 
to Friar John, 3 ; bishop of, gets 
Vassilko to aid P>iar John, 3 



Crit, the people of, iii. See also 
Kerait. 

Crosminians, the, 265. See also 
Khorazmians. 

Cross, Nestorians and Armenians 
make it without image of Christ, 
104, 191 ; Baltu worships it, 189 ; 
Cota worships it, 190 ; brought from 
Jerusalem, 191 ; used for divina- 
tion, 193 

Culan, or Wild Ass, 69, 134 

Cups, of wood used by the Mongols, 
60, 64 ; of gold in Baatu's tent, 
123 ; presenting, as act of homage, 
163 ; blessing Emperor's, 182 

Cur, the river, 264 ; bridge of boats 
over, 265 

Curd, dry, how used, 68 

Curves, the, 264. See also Georgians. 

Curg^ia, the country of, 264 ; Greater, 
265. See aho Georgia. 

Cnriay explanation of the word, 57 

Curoniza, a Mongol chief, 34 ; gives 
Friar John horses and supplies for 
journey, 34. See also Corenza. 

Curta, port of, William reaches it, 
277 

Cynocephalae, the, 12, 36. See also 
Dog-faced people. 

Cyprus, 102 ; date of William's arri- 
val in, 273 ; arrives in, 278 

Dahurs, the, their deities, 60 
Dalmatia, invaded by Mongols, xx 
Damascus, Christian from, 178 
Damietta, capitulation of, xxx; Volga 

wider than Nile at, 258 
Dancing^, when guest drinks, 63 ; 
before Coiac, loi ; at Emperor's 
feast, 247 
Daniel, Duke of Galitch, receives a 
safe-conduct to the Mongol camp, 
2 ; goes to Tartars, 3 ; greets Friar 
John on return, 32 ; he sends mes- 
sage and envoy to Pope, 32 
Danilov, Friar John ill at, 4 
Danube, border of Tartars' dominions, 

47 ; border of Alania, 93 
Daniga, a Mongol prefect, 5, 274 
David, envoy to St. Louis, xxvii-ix, 
xxxii, 102 ; tells of the early home 
of the Tartars, 114; William tells 
Mangu's secretaries about, 229 ; 
Mangu calls him an impostor, 249. 
See also Sabeddin Morrifat David. 
David, King, confounded with 

Chingis Khan, xiii 
David, a Nestorian teacher of Baltu, 
189 ; gets Chan to send William 
wine and food, 206 

U 



290 



INDEX. 



Dead, burnt by Uigurs, 147 ; eaten 
in Tibet, 151; Mangu does not 
visit chapel because dead were put 
in it, 213 ; property of dead puri- 
fied by fire, 240 

Demug^n, a name of Chingis Khan, 
249 

Derbend, town of, 120, 121, 262. See 
also Iron Gate. 

Desht-Kipchak. See Comans. 

DevilS) attack travellers, 161 ; ex- 
pelling, 193 ; evoked by diviners, 
246 ; how exorcised by Armenians, 
272 

Diseases, extraction of in shape of 
worm, 243 

Divination, by scapulomancy, 187, 
188 ; by sifting dust, 219 ; by a 
horse, 243 ; by hypnotic sleep, 
245, 246 

DivinerS) tell Emperor of holy days, 
182 ; location of their tents, 184 ; 
of Saracens, 216, 219 ; of Ruthen- 
ians, 219 ; Mongols trust in, 236 ; 
their chief, his duties, 239 ; know- 
ledge of astronomy, 240 ; pre- 
dictions, 240 ; accuse a woman of 
witchcraft, 243 ; storm-making by, 
^45 ; evoke devils, 246 

Dnieper, river. See Neper. 

Dogs, kingdom of, mentioned in 
Chinese annals, 36 ; of Albania, 
120; drag carts, 120 

Dog-faced people, 12, 36 ; dog- 
headed people mentioned by Soli- 
nus, 36, 198. Se^ also Qyx\ocQp\\2i\x, 

Dokuz Khatun, married to Tului 
and to Hulagu, 115 ; a Kerait 
Christian, 116 

Dominicans, when first in Hungary, 
127; in Pascatir, 131; at Tauris, 
271 ; at Aini, 274 ; William's 
advice to, 274 ; their missions, 
274 

Don, the river, first called by this 
name by Friar John, 8 ; mentioned 
by Benedict, 34 ; its sources, 97. 
See also Tanais. 

Dragons, attack travellers, 161 

Dregs left after making kumiss, by 
whom used, 67, 208 

Drinking, excessive, at election of 
Emperor, 20, 22 ; drunkenness 
common, 63 ; among Nestorians, 
158, 192, 207 ; of Mongol Emperors, 
175; ceremony when Cotata Caten 
drank, 186 ; bout, 248 

Drinks, used by Mongols, 20, 62, 64, 

Drum, magic, 246 



Drunken persons, offences condoned, 

137 
Dubarlaus, a Russian clerk, 27 
Dung, dry, used as fuel, 172 
Dye, red, procured from blood of the 

Chinchin, 199 

Earthquake at Arsengen, 275 
East side, tent of Emperor entered 

by, 23 
Easter, of the Saracens, 143 ; of the 

Armenians, 187 ; great feast of 

Emperor at, 207 
Ebi nor, reference to, 160 
Ecclesiastus, quoted by Friar 

William, 40 
Eclipses, predicted by diviners, 240 ; 

customs when they occur, 240 
Egypt, river of, 96 
Eldegai, procurator of Bati, questions 

Friar John, 9 ; tells him he must 

go to Emperor's court, 1 1 
Election of Emperor, 18, 19 ; where 

made, 21 ; dress of nobles at, 37 
Elisabethpol, the town of, 265 
Embroidery, on felt by Mongols, 

54 ; seen in Christian chapel, 168 
Emperor of Mongols, speaks through 

secretary, never directly to strangers 

at court, 28, 174 ; his throne, 210 ; 

never travels twice over same road, 

223 
Envoys, false, how punished, 80, 

181 ; mark of honour shown, 138 ; 

from Longa and Solanga, 153 ; 

how cared for by the Muc, 154 ; 

envoys dying in China, how treated, 

165, 166 ; of Vastacius, 169 ; 

slighted at audience, 173 ; how 

treated at Mangu's court, 178 ; 

sent by Soldan of Mont Real and 

Crac, 178 ; false envoy, 178, 179 ; 

must pass between fires, 241 ; of 

Caliph of Bagdad, 247 ; object of 

their mission, 247 ; their answer to 

Mangu, 248 ; of Soldan of India, 

248 ; William objects to name 

being applied to him, 251 
Epiphany, Nestorian feast on octave 

of, 184 
Equius, town of, 139 
Emac, town of, 15 
Erzerum, visited by Friar Andrew, 

xxxii ; reached by William, 266. 

See also Aarserum. 
Erzinghian. See Arsengen. 
Ethil, the river, mentioned by Bene- 
dict, 34. See also Etilia «W Volga. 
Etilia, the river, distance from to the 

Tanais, 93 ; its source, 100 ; course 



INDEX. 



291 



of, 100 ; Friar William reaches it, 

107 ; its size and course, 118 ; rises 

like the Nile, 119; village on, 120 ; 

Buri wants to pasture along it, 

137; town of Sarai on the, 256; 

lower course of, 258 
Etreu, desert of, the early home of 

the Tartars, 114 
Eudes de Chateau-Roux, 179. See 

also Oto. 
Eufrates, the river, its source, 266 ; 

William unable to visit source, 267 ; 

William follows its course to 

Camath, 275 
Europe, fear of Mongols in, xiv ; 

disregards Emperor Frederic's 

letter, xix 
Execution, mode of, of Mongol 

princes, 137 
Extreme unction, 217 ; received by 

the Nestorian Jonas, 218 

Falcons, peregrine, 69 ; Mangu has 

some during audience, 173 
Farfar, the river, xvii 
Fast, of Jonah, 186 ; of Saint Serkis, 

186 ; severity of, among Nestorians, 

206 
Feast, at Emperor's election, 22 ; 

drinking at, 63 ; of Nestorians, 1 58 ; 

dates of, settled by diviners, 182 ; 

given in Nestorian chapel, 186; 

Emperor's annual ones at Cara- 

carum, 207 ; on 9th May, 241 ; on 

7th June, 247 ; clothing changed 

each day of, 247 
Feet, of traveller, frozen, 170 
Felt, covers Mongol tents, 54 ; idols 

of, 58, 59, 149 ; various uses of, 

71 ; stockings, 128 ; images under 

care of soothsayers, 149 
Ferry-boats over Tanais, 96 
Fires, passage between, xxxi ; 

reasons given by Mongols for, 9, 

76, 240 ; Friars and presents pass 

between, 35 ; why Friar Andrew 

should have complied with custom, 

240 
First day of month, religious festival 

on, 143 ; felt images worshipped 

on, 149 
Fish, sold at mouth of Tanais, 45 ; 

in river Tanais, 97 ; eaten at 

Nestorian feast, 186 
Flagons, long-necked, 166 
Flour, whence procured, 68 
Fonts, baptismal, consecrated by 

Nestorians, 185 
Food, scant supply given Friar John 

at Bati's camp, 10 ; at the 



Emperor's court, 26; of Mongols, 
65, 68, 69, 132 ; daily allowance to 
William, 183 ; while living with 
Sergius, 202 ; poor quality of, 206 

Forests, of Gazaria, 51 ; of Russia, 
98, 99 

Fortune-telling, 242 

Forty Martyrs, sepulchre of the, 276 

Fountain, in palace at Caracarum, 
208 

Fox-skin gowns, given Friar John, 

Franciscans, m Hungary, 127 
Frederic II, the Emperor, his letter 

to King of England, xviii, xix 
Frost, date of earliest, 135 
Fruit, offered in temples, 143 
Fuel, of dry dung or briars, 133, 172 
Furs, trade in, at Sudak, 44; from 

Russia, brought the Mongols, 70 ; 

like seal-skin worn by Mangu, 172; 

used as currency in Russia, 202 

Gaiatheddin, Sultan of Turkey, 280 

Ganges, the city of, 265 

Gates, to great tents, 19 

Gazaria, its position, 42, 45 ; de- 
scription of coast, 50, 51 ; ditch at 
end of, 91 

Gazars, the, 12 ; are Christians, 36 ; 
city in their country, 36. See also 
Khazars. 

Gazelles, plentiful in Mongolia, 69 

Gemash. See Camath. 

Genuflexions, three before door of 
Mongol prince's tent, 6, 10 ; made 
to the south, 22 ; Chinese envoy to 
Uigurs refuses to make, 22 ; four 
made at audience with Emperor, 
23 ; before Sartach, 104 ; before 
Baatu, 123, 124; priests exempted, 
171 ; before Mangu, 173 

Georgians, the, 12 ; princes of the, 
at Mongol court, 20 ; are Chris- 
tians, 36 ; befriend the Friars, 39 ; 
use Greek language in church ser- 
vices, 39 ; origin of their name, 
39, 264 ; do not eat Mongol food or 
drink kumiss, 87 ; their mountains, 
119. See also Curges. 

Germans, prisoners at Talas, xxxi, 
xxxii ; esteemed by Moxel, 99 ; a 
female slave, 245 ; baptized by 
William at Karakorum, 247 ; at 
Sarai, 258. See also Teutons. 

Ghuzz Turks, 36, 42, 54. See also 
Khazars. 

Girls, how dressed among the Mon- 
gols, 72 ; how they wear their hair, 
72 

U 2 



292 



INDEX. 



Glass, used at Bolnt, 138 

Goats, kept in tent, 59 ; by whom 

tended, 76 
God, Uigurs' belief in, 148, 234 ; 

Tuins' theory concerning, 233 ; 

Mongols' idea of, explained by 

Mangu, 235 ; Mangu's references 

to, in letter, 248, 249, 250, 251 
Goderiche, John, accompanies Friar 

Andrew, xxix 
Gog chan, 21, 108. See also Kha- 

khan. 
Gog Magog, xxxi, 108, 109 
Gold, Teuton slaves employed digging 

for, 137 ; found in Tibet, 152 
Golden stuffs, from Cataia and Persia, 

70 

Gosset, bearer of presents, accom- 
panies Friar William, 50 ; ordered 
back to Sartach's camp, 126 ; hard- 
ships endured, 257 ; stops with a 
Gorman at Sarai, 259 

Got and Margoth, people of, xxxi 

Goths, in the Crimea, 36 ; their 
language, 51* 

Gowns, of fur, worn by Mongols, 
70 ; wadded, 7 1 ; lied on right 
side, 73 

Grapes, at Kinchat, 135; in Caucasus, 
262 

Grate, for fire in tent, 172 

Great Hungary, 12. See also Bas- 
carts. 

Great Soldan, 15. See also Alti | 
Soldan. 1 

Greece, 12. See also Vastacius, 
country of. 

Greek, Christian, at Kuyuk's court, 
29 ; do not drink cosmos^ 87 ; of 
Gazaria, use bells, 145 ; knight 
recognises Bartholomew, 170 ; 
bishops are monks, 267 

Gregory IX, Pope, his action on 
Mongol invasion, xix, xx 

Greyhounds, taught to sit on horses, 
248 

Grimislawa, Duchess of Cracow, 

3 
Gnnly dry curd, its various names, 68 ; 

made by the women, 75 
Guardian deity, 58 
Guchluk Khan, 1 10. See also John, 

King. 
Guchu. son of Ogodai, 164 
Guide, of Friar William to Vlangu's 

court, 128 ; gets drunk, 169 ; his 

leave-taking of the Friar, 176; 

guide's conduct on return journey, 

273, 276 
Guido, lord t)f Trapesund, 46 



Guitar, 62, 87, 101 ; playing, when 
drinking, 11,62, 63; specialty of 
people of Organum, 141 

Gur Khan, 108, no. See also Con 
cham. 

Hacsasins, try to kill Mangu, 222. 
See also Mulidet and Assassins. 

Hair, how worn by Mongols, 72 

Hair-cloth garment, 168 

Hakluyt, Richard, first publishes 
Friar William's work, xxxix 

Halapia, the town of, 275 

Hands, joined in worship by idolaters, 
143 ; shaking of, 176, 184 

Hardships, on return journey of 
Friar John, 30, 31 ; of Friar William 
on journey, 127, 132, 133 ; at 
Mangu's camp, 166, 169 ; on his 
return journey, 255 

Hares, in Mongolia, 69 

Hat, removing, contrary to Armenian 
and Greek custom, 204 

Hawks, manner of flying them, 69 ; 
from the Moxel's country, 99 

Head-dress, of Mongol women, 73 ; 
of Longa and Solanga envoys, 153 

Henry of Lorraine, his letter to 
Duke of Brabant, xviii 

Heythum, king of Little Armenia, 
225 ; William gets news of, 255 ; 
his journey, 255 ; kindness to 
William's servants, 257 ; news 
received from by father, 278 

Himatala, head-dress of women of, 74 

Hircania, 266 

Holy oil, asked of Friar William, 105 

Holy Sepulchre, Order of, owned 
land at Naxua, 271 

Homo Dei, the dragoman, 50, 126; 
gets drunk at court, 173 ; sells in 
Cyprus a piece of bukeram, 186 ; 
money given him for return journey, 
253 ; gives to Tauris, 267 

Honey, used in drinks, 72 ; great 
(juantities among the Moxel, 99 

Horns from Armenia, 179 

Horses, relays in Comania, 12, 131 ; 
in Mongolia, 18 ; where kept during 
election of Emperor, 19 ; richness 
of harness, 20 ; supplied mission by 
Tartars, 34 ; sacrificed at funerals, 
81 ; on visiting court people alight 
from, 167 ; consecration of white 
horses, 241 ; divination by, 243 

Hsi-an Fu, city of, 157 

Hsi Liao, the dynasty of the, 109. 
See also Kara-Khitai. 

Hua-yang Kuo chih, quoted on story 
of the Chinchin, 2(X> 



INDEX. 



293 



Hup^h of Santocaro, the Legate, 30 

Huiurs. See lugurs and Uigurs. 

Hungarians, at Mongol court, 27, 
246 ; brigandage by Hungarian 
slaves, 117; met with at Batu's 
camp, 127 ; their language same as 
that of Pascatir, 129; at Mangu's 
camp, 168 

Hungary, King of, his tent used by 
Batu, 10 ; the kingdom of, 12 ; 
cause of retreat of Mongols from, 
25 ; ravaged by Batu, 34 ; Ruscia 
reaches to, 94 ; Dominicans in, 
127 ; Franciscans in, 127 ; army of 
King, 281 

Huns, came from Pascatir, 133 

Hyberia, 42. See also Georgia. 

Hypnotic sleep, German slave put 
into, 245, 246 

lam^ post station, loi, 160, 161, 165; 
also an official, his duties, 178 

landdnt, city of, 14, 37 

/ascot, its value, 156, 185, 191 ; 
counterfeit one, 217 ; Mangu gives 
Buchier an hundred, 223 ; refused 
by William, 236 ; William gives 
one to poor at Caracarum, 253 

Ibers, the, 12, 46. See also Georgians. 

Ibn Alathir, quoted, 43 

Ice, date when first seen, 135 

Idolaters, first met with, 141 ; their 
temples, 142, 143, 144; their fables, 

157 
Idols, position of, in temples, 144 ; 

size of, 144 ; under care of the 

diviners, 239 
Ilchikadai, sends mission to St. 

Louis, xxvii, 102 ; mission un- 
authorised, xxviii 
Ili river, xxxii, 139 
Jlkhan, a title, 108 
Iliac, the, same as Blacs, 130 
Image of Emperor, worshipped by 

Mongols, 35, 59 ; of felt in tent, 

58, 59 ; how made, 59 ; winged, 

142 ; of deceased, made by Uigurs, 

148 
Imil, town of, 16, 254 ; Friar Andrew 

received by Ogul Gaimish at, xxix ; 

the river, 161, 162. See also Omyl. 
Immortals, land of, beyond Cathay, 

200 
Incense, burnt in temples, 143 ; used 

by Nestorians, 184 
India, presents from a Soldan of, 248 ; 

William travels with envoys from, 

248 
Inheritance, rules of, among the 

Mongols, 78 



Innocent IV, Pope, elected, xxi ; 
proclaims crusade against Mongols, 
xxi ; organises missions to Mongols, 
xxi ; reasons for, xxi ; his first 
envoys, xxiii, xxiv ; sends new mis- 
sion in 1247, xxiv 

Interpreter, of Friar William, 50 ; 
not fluent, 88 ; unreliable, 96 ; who 
acted as, for translating King Louis' 
letter, 105 ; gets drunk, 173 ; new 
one promised him by William 
Buchier, 178 

Iron exacted as tribute by Mongols, 

, 47 

Iron gate, the, 100, 119, 120, 261 ; 
distance to Bulgar, 122 ; made by 
Alexander, 262 

Irrigated plain reached, 134 

Isaiah, quoted, 264, 275 

Isidorus of Seville quoted, 93, 118; 
his views on the Caspian wrong, 
120 ; on dogs of Albania, 120 ; 
concerning the Huns, 130; on the 
fortress of Seres, 155 ; his stories of 
monsters, 198 

Ismaehans, their mission to England 
and France, xiv ; reason for mission, 
xvi ; opinion of, on origin of Tartars, 
xvii 

Israel, lost tribes of, Tartars said to 
belong to, 114 

I toga, the god, 246 

lugurs, their country, 141 ; their re- 
ligion, 143 ; dress of their priests, 
146 ; Tartars use their script, 147 ; 
burn their dead, 147 ; religious 
belief. 148, 149; their early country, 
150 ; people small-sized, 152 ; their 
language, 152 ; mode of writing, 
202. See also Uigurs. 

lurl, or tent, 55 

Jabkam, river, 161 
aec, Jagac, or Jaiac, the river, 8, 
129 ; forms border of the Kangitae 
country, 36. 
Janiiam^ officer thus called receives 
' envoys, 10 1 
Jews, of the Caucasus, 12; Khazars 
mostly Jews, 36 ; believed Tartars 
were of their race, 114; in Samaron, 
I 263 ; in Persia, 264 

Jiv^ani quoted, 17 

j John of Beaumont, 123 

I John Ducas Vataces. See Vastacius. 

I John, PViar, of Pian de Carpi ne, sent 

on mission to Mongols, xxii ; his 

name, xxi ; date of departure on 

mission, xxiii ; sent to Paris by 

Pope, xxvi ; probably met Friar 



294 



INDEX. 



William of Rubruck, xxvi ; his dress 
at audience of Baatu, 123 ; his 
route joins Friar William's, 134 

John, King, of the Naiman, 1 10 ; his 
history, no et seq. ; his heir, 114 

John of Piano, suffers martyrdom, 
xxvii 

John, the Presbyter, his mission from 
Sartach, 48, 274 

Joinville, Sire de, quoted about Ogul 
Gaimish's action on receipt of pre- 
sents from St. Louis, xxix ; letter 
of Empress Ogul (jaimish, xxx ; 
about Trebizonde, 46 ; about Mon- 
gol habits, 64 
Jonah, his fast, 186 
onas, the Nestorian priest, his con- 
troversy with Sergius, 204, 205 ; 
falls ill, 216 ; a diviner tells cause 
of illness, 216, 217 ; receives com- 
munion and extreme unction, 218 ; 
his death, 219 

Juchi, eldest sonof Chingis Khan, 15 
udas Thadeus, Saint, place of 
martyrdom, 268 
Justice, among the Mongols, 79 

Kadac, the procurator of the Emperor 

Kuyuk, 27, 28 
Kakhethi, people of, 12. See also 

Cachs. 
Kam, the god, 246 
Kangitae, country of the, 36, its 

swamps, salt marshes and deserts, 

36, 37. See also Cangle. 
Kaniew. See Canov. 
Kankali, the, 36 ; origin of name, 

55 ; also called Turcman, 141. See 

also Cangle and Karluks. 
Kao-chang, Chinese mission to, 

113 
Kao-ch'e, the, or "High carts," 54, 

141 
Kao-li. See Caule. 
Kara-Khitai, 15; build Imil, 16; their 

habits, 18 ; meaning of name, 37 ; 

arc pagans, yj ; were once masters 

of the Tartars, 37 ; founder of 

dynasty, 108 ; origin of name, 109 ; 

their country, 138 ; river in their 

country, 138 
Kara Irtish river, 161 ; in Naiman 

country, 163 
Karakhodjo, 113 
Karancha. Sre Corenza. 
Kara tan mountains, 134 
Karluks, the, 54. See also Cangle 

and Kankali. 
Kem, the river, 198 
Keraits, the, iii 



Kerkis, furs from the country of the, 
70 ; used for Cherkess {q.v.), 100 ; 
pass through Sartach 's camp, 116; 
Kerkis of the north, their early his- 
tory, 197. See also Kirghiz. 

Kersona, the city of, 42, 45 ; island 
near it, 43 ; its trade, 42 ; coast 
from, to mouth of the Tanais, 51 

Keu Chan, Nestorians' story about, 
no ; St. Louis sends envoys to, 
123 ; arrival in plain where he 
lived, 162 ; his death, and fate of his 
family, 163 ; elder son killed, 
younger son succeeds him, 164 ; 
already dead, when Friar Andrew 
arrived in Mongolia, 240 ; Mangu 
refers in letter to St. Louis to, 249. 
See also Kuyuk Khan. 

Khakan^ or Emperor, 21, 108. See 
also (iog chan. 

Khon^ a title, 108 

Khatun^ a title, 108. See also Caten. 

Khazars, early mentions of, 36, 41 ; 
the name Gazaria derived from 
theirs, 41 ; Sea of the, 95. See also 
Ghuzz. 

A% /'/«/, presentation of, 247 

Khoja Og^l, son of Kuyuk, poisoned, 

163 

Khorazm Shah, 14. See also Alti 
Soldan. 

Khorazmian Empire, the, 14, 265. 
See also Crosminians. 

Kievr, city of. Friar John starts for, 
3 ; captured by Tartars, 3 ; arrival 
at, 4 ; leaves it, 4 ; date of leaving, 
8 ; return of Friar John to, 31 ; 
under Mongol rule, 33 

Kinchat, town of, 135 ; vines seen 
at, 135 

King, of the French, rejoices at 
Sartach being a Christian, 48 

Kipchaks, their trade at Sudak, 43 ; 
slaves from among, 50 ; customs at 
court of chief of, 61 ; identified 
with Comans, 92 

Kirghiz, the, were a tribe of the 
T'ieh-le, 54 ; the Kipchak Kirghiz, 
93 ; early history of, 197 ; origin of 
name, 198. See also Kerkis. 

Kischk, discloses Siremon's con- 
spiracy, 164 

Kissing hand after touching holy 
images, 184 

Kitan, tribes near Lake Baikal, 55 

Kitayans, Prince of the, at Mongol 
court, 20 ; present tent to Emperor, 
24 

Kneeling, before the Emperor, 22 ; 
before Baatu, 123 



INDEX. 



295 



KVlan, a tribe of wild men, 16 

Konieh. See Yconium. 

Korea. See Caule. 

Kumandin Tartars, their deities, 60 

Kurb^ Bairam, feast of, 143 

Kuriltai, or parliament of Mongols, 

18 
Kutan, brother of Kuyuk, poisoned, 

163 

Kuyuk Khan, the Emperor, Friar 
John sent to, 11 ; his appanage, 16; 
Friar John arrives at his camp, 18 ; 
date of election, 18 ; audience of, 
19 ; when elected, 21 ; his en- 
thronement, 22 ; his father killed 
by his aunt, her trial and death, 25 ; 
he proposes declaring war on 
Christendom, 26 ; his age and 
character, 29; favours Christians, 
29 ; wishes to send his ambassadors 
to Europe, 29 ; Friar John's reasons 
for not wanting this, 29, 30 ; gives 
a letter to Pope to Friar John, 30, 
39 ; Friar Andrew's mission to, 
no; his quarrel with Batu, 137. 
See also Keu chan. 

Kutuktai Khatun. Set Cotata Caten. 

Lama, a Tibetan, 199 ; reincarnate, 
from Cathay, 232 

Lamps, in temples, 142, 143, 144 ; 
with eight lights in chapel, 168 

Language, diversity of, along coast 
of Gazaria, 51 ; used in Organum, 
140, 141 ; of Uigurs root of Turkie- 
Coman, 152 ; of the Cathayans, 
156 

Larceny, punishment of, 79, 80 

Largess, at Emperor's election, 24 

Lascaris, Theodore. See Ascar. 

Laudumie, town of, 269 

Lawrence of Portugal, Friar, his 
mission to the Mongols, xxiv ; 
Pope's Legate in Asia Minor, xxiv 

Lavas. See Auax. 

Left, side assigned to women, 10, 57 ; 
and to ambassadors not yet received 
at court, II ; last wife's tent on 
extreme left, 57 

Legate, in Germany, servants mal- 
treated, 30 ; in Holy Land, 179 

Legs, bandaged by Friars to resist 
fatigue of riding, 35 

Lemnnc, town of, 14, 31 

Leopards, hunting, 248 

Lesg^, position of their country, 100, 
119, 261 

Lesko, son of Duke of Cracow, 3 

Letters, to Pope, m what language 
written, 27 ; how translated, 28 ; 



of Emperor to Scatay, 84, 87 ; of 
King Louis given Sartach, 103 ; 
translated, 105 ; from Mangu to 
King Louis, 248 

Libations, 60, 61 

Lightning, Mongols' superstitions 
about, 241 

Lignitz, battle of, xviii 

Lithuanians, brigandage of, on road 
to Kiew, 3 

Litter, mule, 247 

Longa, country of, 152 ; envoys 
from, 153 ; carry a tablet before 
face at court, 154 

Losyr, Emir of Turkic, 280 

Louis, King, .takes the cross, xxv ; 
sees Friar John of Pian de Carpine, 
xxvi ; lands in Cyprus, xxvii ; re- 
ceives Mongol mission, xxvii ; sends 
mission to Ilchikadai and to Kuyuk 
Khan, xxviii, xxix ; goes to Egypt, 
xxx ; Mangu's letter to, 248 ; et 
seq. 

Lyons, Friar John leaves, i ; Pope 
at, 33 



Machomet, religion of, professed in 
Turkya, 37 

Msotide fens, source of Tanais in, 
97 ; Albania reaches to, 120 

Magic, formulas, 147 ; drums, 246 

Mahummeries (mosques), in Cara- 
carum, 221 

Mallachias, a Saracen bishop who 
converted the Great Khan, xxvii 

Mangu Khan, the Nestorian story 
of his Christianity, 1 10 ; his parents, 
115 ; Friar William enters his 
country, 138 ; his letters written in 
Uigur writing, 147 ; elected Em- 
peror by will of Baatu, 166 ; defeats 
Siremon's conspiracy, 164 ; his 
appearance and dress, 172 ; his 
speech to Friar William, 174 ; was 
drunk, 175 ; allows the Friars to 
remain two months, 174 ; permits 
Friars to visit Caracarum, 175 ; 
questions the impostor Thcodulus, 
179, 180; his feasts, 182; his 
religion, 182 ; Nestorians say he 
was baptized, 183 ; visits Nestorian 
chapel, 185 ; fasts, 187 ; given to 
divination by scapulomancy, 187, 
188 ; receives William and Nes- 
torians, 188 ; gives an Armenian 
money to rebuild church, 191 ; his 
third wife, 191 ; receives William, 
194 ; grants Sergius permission to 
carry cross on end of pole, 194 ; 



296 



INDEX. 



starts for Caracarum, 210 ; arrives 
at, 212 ; receives William and Nes- 
torians, 212. 213 ; promises to visit 
Nestorian chapel, 213; his brothers, 
222 ; visits his mother's grave, 223 ; 
returns to Caracarmn, 224 ; William 
asks his intentions about his staying, 
225 ; asks William to discuss with 
other priests, 228 ; asks William 
why he had come to Mongolia, 
228 ; orders William back, wishes 
to send an envoy with him, 229 ; 
tells William of the Mongol faith, 
235 ; his behef in diviners, 236 ; 
tells William he will send letters by 
him, 237 ; sends him to Batu, 238 ; 
William asks him to allow him to 
come back, 238 ; reported baptism 
of, 239; rebukes and punishes his 
wife, 245; returns to Karakorum, 
247 ; speech to people on feast day, 
247 ; the Caliph of Baldach's envoys 
and, 248 ; tells envoys he does not 
want presents biit soldiers, 248 ; 
his letters to St. Louis, 248, 249, 
250, 251 ; he abuses Camus, widow 
of Keu Chan, 250 ; allows Friar 
Bartholomew to defer return, 251 ; 
sends money to Friars, 253 ; recalls 
Baachu and Argun, 265 ; Domini- 
cans bearing letters to, 274 

Manichsism, among the Uigurs, 
150 ; a doctrine of, 205 ; a doctrine 
of, professed by all idolaters, 231 

Mankates, tribe of, 55 

Manse, the, tribute they paid the 
Mongols, 201 

Mansurah, battle of, xxx. See also 
Mensura. 

Marcus, a companion of the envoy 
David, xxviii, 102 ; acts as inter- 
preter, 105 

Mare Magnum^ 8 ; Friar John's 
notions about extent of, 9. See also 
Black Sea and Pontus. 

Mares, milked by men, 59 ; quantity 
of milk of, used by Baatu, 67. See 
also Cosmos. 

Mark of honour, 138 

Market, in Batu's camp, 127 ; in 
Caracarum, 221 

Marmots, eaten by Mongols, 69 

Marriag-e, customs of Mongols, y^, 
78 ; of Nestorian priests, 158 

Marrow, always eaten, 66 

Marsengen, the city of, 273 

Massis, Mount, legend concerning, 
270. See also Ararat. 

Matrica (Matrig-a), city of, 44 ; its 
position, 45 ; trade of, 45 



Matthew Paris, his description of 

the Mongols, xiv, et seq. 
Mauchy. See Mauci. 
Mauci, a Mongol chief, 8 ; Friar 

John's servants detained by, li ; 

he reaches the camp of, on return 

journey, 31 
Mead, drunk in Mongol camp, 20, 

62 ; oflfered to travellers, 135 
Meals, of Mongols, 65 ; customs as 

to, 65, J6 
Meat, jerked by Mongols, 64 ; how 

eaten, 65 
Mechanical contrivance of William 

Buchier, 208 ; other similar ones, 

209 
Mecrit, the, 112 

Medicine, among the Cathayans, 1 56 
Mekrit, the, iii. See also Merkit. 
Men, Mongol, their occupations, 76 ; 

dress of Russian, 98 ; sit on west 

side of tent or audience-hall, 210 
Mensura, battle of, xxx, 180 
Mercator, Gerard, did not know 

Friar William's work, xxxix 
Merdas, the, 99, icx) 
Merdinis. See Merdas. 
Merkit, the people of, iii, 112, 249 ; 

their prince marries Chingis Khan's 

daughter, 149 
Methodius, Saint, prophecy concern- 
ing the Saracens, 268 
Micheas, an Alan prefect, exacts 

many presents from Friar John, 5, 

34 
Milk, quantity supplied to Baatu, 67 
Millenarius, of Kiew, Friar John 

consults with him as to route, gives 

him presents for pack-horses and 

escort, 4 
Millet, given Friar John, 10 ; whence 

procured by Mongols, 6^ ; much 

grown in Russia, 98 ; gruel, 132 ; 

mead, 183 ; parched, 186 
Mingaiau^ a Mongol commander of a 

thousand, 5, 128 
Miniver furs, sold at Sudak, 44 ; 

meaning of word as used by Friar 

William, 44 ; used as currency in 

Russia, 202 
Mirza Haidar, quoted about yaks. 

Mitre, worn by idolater priests, 146; 
by envoys from Longa and Solanga, 

153 
Moal. See Mongols. 
Moan, plain of, 264. See also Mugan, 

plain of. 
Moles, King, 179 
Mo-ho tribes, 113 



Money, amount taken by Friar 
William, 126 ; paper money of 
Cathay, 201 ; Ruthenians use skins 
as, 202 ; used on return journey, 

253 
Mongols, invade Russia, xiii ; de- 
scribed by Albericus, xiii ; second 
invasion of Europe by, xiv ; de- 
scription of the, by Matthew Paris, 
xiv, XV, xvi, xvii ; charged with 
cannibalism, xv ; their customs, xv; 
arms, xvi ; descent from the Jews, 
xvi, xvii ; wolf-like speech of, 
xviii ; mission from, to St. Louis, 
xxvii ; Friar Andrew on the, xxxi ; 
called also Tartars, 18 ; their first 
invasion of the Crimea, 52 ; their 
nomadic habits, 53 ; their tents, 
53, 54 ; their guardian deities, 58 ; 
their worship, 59, 60 ; their drinks, 
62 ; drinking customs, 63 ; their 
food, 63 ; eat carrion, 64 ; physical 
traits of, 72 ; mortuary customs, 

81 ; fear evil spirits, 83 ; inquisi- 
tiveness of, 83, 84 ; their conceit, 
85 ; archery among the, 76 ; mar- 
riage customs of, 77 ; pride of 
Mongols in their name, 107 ; early 
home of, iii, 112; Rashideddin 
quoted as to early history of, 115 ; 
adopt the writing of the Uigurs, 
150 ; their conceit, 165 ; super- 
stitions, 224 ; only conquer by 
deceit, 226 ; their belief in God, 
235 ; their religion, 236 ; customs 
as regards eclipses, 240 ; their 
superstitions about lightning, 241 ; 
belief in diviners, 246 ; notions 
about sun and moon, 246 ; their 
worship of Itoga, 246. See also 
Tartars. 

Monk, Armenian, at Mangu's court, 

168, 169. 6V^ rt/j-tf Sergius. 
Mont Real and Crac, envoy from 

Soldan of, 178 
Monsters, legends concerning, 198 
Moon, notion concerning, 246 
Morduins, a people of Russia, 12 ; 

are pagans, 36 ; shave back of head, 

36. See also Moxel. 
Mortuary customs, xxxiii, 80, 81, 

82 ; monuments, 82 

Moxel, furs from, 70 ; their country 
and customs, 99. See also Mor- 
duins. 

Muc, their country and customs, 154 

Mugan, plain of, xxxii. See also 
Moan, plain of. 

Mulidet, the, 222. See also Hac- 



INDEX. 29^ 

Mulihec mountains, 118 
Muscadel wine, presented to Coiac, 

102 
Music, played when drinking, 62 
Musical instruments of Mongols, 62 
Mus tau mountains, 161 
Musteleman, 249 



Nadjivan, the city of, 267. See also 

Naxua. 
Naiman, country of the, 17, 109; 

their religion, 17, no ; habits, 18 ; 

they become rulers of Kara-Khitai, 

no; name still borne, no; Keu 

Chan lived in their country, 162 ; 

were subjects of Prester John, 162 ; 

mentioned by Mangu in letter, 249 
Nasic^ a gold brocade, 70, 185, 250 
Natigay^ image so called, 59 
Naxua, the city of, William's visit 

to, 267 ; meets a Dominican there, 

271 ; remains there on account of 

snow, 271 
Neper, the river, first called by this 

name by Friar John, 8 ; mentioned 

by Benedict, 34 
Nestorianism, among the Uigurs, 

150 
Nestorians, their crosses, 104 ; holy 
oil, 105 ; the Naiman Nestorians, 
no; their story of King John, no; 
the Crit and Merkit, in ; at Sar- 
tach's camp, n6 ; of Organum, 
141 ; in the Uigur country, 141 ; 
do not join hands in prayer, 143 ; 
are Mongol scribes, 150 ; live 
among the idolaters, 157 ; bishop 
resides in Segin, 157 ; are pure 
idolaters, 1 58 ; are simoniacs, 1 59 ; 
their evil influence over Mongol 
youth, 159 ; village of, 159 ; secre- 
tary of Mangu a Nesiorian, 168 ; 
interpreter, 173 ; select feast days 
for Emperor, 182 ; customs, 184 ; 
their fasts, 186, 206 ; do not con- 
demn sorcery, 195 ; divination by 
twigs, 195 ; teacher of Mangu's 
brother, 212 ; their relations with 
Church of Rome, 213 ; offer 
William sacrament, 213 ; their holy 
bread and holy oil, 214 ; William 
uses their chapel, 215 ; their anti- 
mensium sent from Bagdad, 215 ; 
baptism on Easter eve by, 216 ; 
their disputation with Saracens and 
Tuins, 229, 230 ; their bishop in 
Cathay tries them for offences, 244 ; 
use of charms by, 244 ; a learned 
monk of, arrives at Caracarum, 
253 



298 



INDEX. 



Nicholas ot Genoa, in Yconiiim, 

277 ; sends William to Curta, 277 
Nicholas, the slave-boy of Friar 

William, 50 ; ordered back to Sar- | 

tach's camp, 126 
Nicosia, Mongol mission visits, 

xxvii ; William arrives at, 278 
Nile, the river, 96 ; the Etilia rises 

like it, 119 
Nitoch, Sea of. See Pontus. 
Noah, town built by, 267, 269 ; 

mountain on which the ark rested, 

269 
North, idolaters all face north in 

worship, 143 
Nu-chen Tartars, 109, 113, 153, 154 

Oath, mode of taking among the 
Comans, xxxiii 

Obesi, the, 12. 6*^^ ^'/j^ Georgians. 

Ocean, the, 12 ; Mongols' ignorance 
concerning, 133 ; the eastern, 157 

Ochigin, brother of Chingis, size of 
his camp, 56 

Octorar, town of, 15. Sfe also Ornas. 

Offerings, in temples, 142, 143, 144 

Officers, of Batu's court, 10 ; of 
Emperor's court, 28 

Ogodai, death of, stops invasion of 
Europe, xx ; rebuilds Imil, 16, 
162 ; date of death of, 18, 35 ; 
established post stations, loi 

Ogul Gaimish, receives Friar An- 
drew, xxix ; her letter to St. Louis, 
XXX ; her camp on the Imil, xxxii ; 
instigator of Siremon's conspiracy, 
164; accused by iViangu of being 
a witch, 250. See also Camus. 

Oguz Turks, 113, 141 



^%^ 

A 



Oil, holy, of NesLorians, 214 

Om inani padme htim^ the formula, 

146 
Omen, evil, 125 
Omyl, the city of, 15, 162 ; Friar 

John's route after leaving it, 16. 

See also Imil. 
On viani haccam^ the formula, 146 
Onankerule, country of, 116; the 

oniii of Chingis Khan in, 165 ; 

distance of. from Mangu's camp, 

.96 

Orda (or ordti), or tent, 7 ; court of 
Bati, 9 ; ruled by chiefs wife, 17 ; 
first ori/a of Kuyuk, 17 ; arrival at, 
17 : the Golden Orda, 22 ; size of an 
ordti^ 57 ; explanation of word, 57, 
122 ; of Chingis Khan, 115 ; of 
Batu, 122 ; of Mangu reached, 165. 
See also Ormektua. 

Ordu, a Mongol chief, 17 



Orengai, the, 198, 245 
Orenguias, son of Mangu, 184 
Organum, country of, 140 ; origin 01 

name, 141 
Orientation, of tents, 56 ; of temples, 

143 ; in praying, 171 
Ormektua, or Sira Orda, 21, 37, 38, 

223 
Omachi, town of, 15 
Omarum, town of, 15; how captured 

by Tartars, 36. See also Ornas. 
Ornas, city of, 14, 15, 36 
Ossetes, descendants of Alans, 89 
Oto, the Bishop, 179 
Otrar, town of, 14 
Otter-skins, 172 
Ovid, quoted by Benedict, 35 
Ox-carts, used by Friar William, 49 ; 

how loaded, 50 ; number driven by 

one woman, 57 ; how taken on 

boats, 96 
Ox-hide, boats, xv ; jars, 65 

Pa-erh-chen, town of, 14 

Paiza^ golden bull or badge of 

authority, 181 
Palace, of Caracarum, 207, 209, 210, 

212, 221 ; in neighbourhood of 

Caracarum, 223 
Palus Maeotis, boundary of Alania, 

93 ; called Sea of Tanais, 94 ; its 

various names, 94, 95 
Pannonia, identical with Hungar>'j 

131 

Papion-skin gowns, 70, 183 

Paquette, of Metz, 176 ; tells William 
of William Buchier, 177; her hus- 
band, 177; tells William of talk, 
about his poor interpreter, 178 ; a 
story she tells William, 242, 243, 
244, 245 

Parchment, request for, 260 

Parrosits, the, 12, 36 

Pascatir, country of, 12 ; furs from, 
70 ; the Jagac rises in, 129 ; lan- 
guage of, 129 ; Huns came from, 
130 ; Dominicans inform Friar 
William concerning, 131 ; tribes 
east of, 198. See also Bascarts. 

Passion, the Nestorians* idea about 
the, 104 

Pasture lands of Mongols, 53 

Perekop, ditch of, 51, 91 

Permiaks,the, 12. ^Wvz/j^ Parro.sits. 

Persia, stuffs brought the Mongols 
from, 70 ; rivers from, flow into 
Caspian, 100 ; Nestorians in, 141 ; 
Jews in, 264 

Peter, the Russian ■ Archbishop, 
quoted, 15, 64, 114 



INDEX. 



299 



Philip of Toucy, his mission to St. 
Louis, xxxiii; Friar William accom- 
panies mission on return, xxxiv 

Poland, Friar John's route through, 
I ; its position, 94 

Pole, over temple, 146 

Poles, their language, 130 

Polovtses. Ste Comans. 

Pontus, identified with Comania, 35 ; 
Friar William enters it, 41 ; its size, 
41 ; promontories in it, 41, 42 ; its 
other names, 41 ; Tanais empties 
into, icx). See also Black Sea attd 
Mare Magnum. 

Pope, letters of, to Grand Duke of 
Russia, 3 ; his instructions to Friar 
John, 5, 6 ; at Lyons when mission 
starts, 33 ; Mongols' questions con- 
cerning his age, 133 ; Sergius pro- 
mises Mangu to go as envoy to, 204 ; 
sends presents to Nestorian patri- 
arch, 213 

Prayers, of Friar WiUiam, for rich 
Mongols, 133; to drive away devils, 
161 ; for Mangu Khan, 173 ; for 
moderating the cold, 211 ; on re- 
ceiving presents, 252 

Precedence, at Mongol court, 24 

Presents, asked for, by Corenza, 7 ; 
by Bati, 9, 10 ; made to Emperor 
on election, 23 ; made to Friar John 
by Empress, 30 ; brought from Con- 
stantinople by Friar William, 49 ; 
necessary among Tartars, 49, 95 ; 
for Sartach, asked for, 10 1 ; of food 
and drink to envoys, 135 ; made to 
nobles by Emperor at Easter feast, 
207 ; offered to Emperor by Nes- 
torians, 212 ; sent to Mangu by 
Soldan of India, 248 ; brought from 
Soldan of Turkia, 248 ; made the 
Friars by the Chan, 252 

Prester John, 37 ; influence of belief 
in, xxi ; confounded with John 
Baptist, xxii ; Chinghis Khan's war 
with, xxxi ; his kingdom, 150; 
Naiman were his subjects, 162 

Priests, of idolaters, 145 ; look like 
Franks, 146 ; of the lugurs, 146 ; 
their dress, their lives, 158 ; of 
Nestorians, 158 ; of Christians at 
Mongol feasts, 182 ; highest of 
Nestorians hands Emperor his cup, 
189 ; from Cathay, 196 ; German, 
from Bolat, 225 

Prostrations, of idolaters in worship, 
143 ; of Nestorians, 184 

Pruscia, conquered by Teutonic 
order, 94 

Ptolemais, St. Louis lands at, xxx 



I Purchas, Samuel, published full text 
I of Friar William's work, xxxix ; his 
! opinion of the Friar's style, xlii ; of 
value of worn, xlii 
Purple, 19, 23 ; a piece of, given 
' Friar John, 30 ; tunics of, 71, 74 
P'u-su-man Kuo, 13. See also 
Bisermins. 
i Pyramids, built over dead, 147 

I Quinquagesima Sunday, 202 

I Rabban Sauma, the Nestorian, 213 
Raconadius, Sultan of Turkic, 280 
I Rainfall in Mongolia, 170 
I Rats, eaten as food, 68, 69 
I Raymond of Aeon, an impostor, 178, 
; 179 ; sent by Mangu as guide to 
I his envoy, 180 ; imprisoned by 
Vastacius, 181 
Relig^ion, of idolaters, 143 ; of Kita- 
yans, 155 ; of Nestorians, 158 ; of 
Mongols, 235, 236 
Rhubarb, how used by Sergius, 192, 

216 
Rice, drink made of, 62, 166, 173, 
186 ; resembled Auxerre wine in 
taste, 166 ; drunk by Nu-chen 
Tartars, 167 
Rig^ht side assigned to ambassadors 
who have been received by Emperor, 
1 1 ; tent of first wife on, 57 ; right 
side of tents for men, 58 
Rivers, Mongol method of crossing, 

xvi 
Roman, Duke of Russia, met by 

Friar John, 31 
Ropes, how made by Mongols, 71 ; 
of tent represent threshold of door, 

123 

Rum, the Seldjuk empire of Asia 
Minor, 37, 41 

Ruscia, Friar John's route through, 
I ; situation of 12, 93 ; merchants 
from, visit Sudak, 44 ; gets salt at 
I'erekop, 52 ; lies north covered 
with forests, 94 ; ravaged by Mon- 
gols, 94 

Ruscians, killed or carried into cap- 
tivity by Tartars, 3, 94 ; taxes im- 
posed on, by Mongols, 94. See also 
Ruthenians. 

Ruthenians, 4 ; at Mongol court, 
26, 27, 177 ; do not drink cosmos ^ 
87 ; dress of, 98 ; brigandage of, 
117; have ferry over Etilia, 120; 
their language, 130 ; use bells in 
their churches, 145 ; their money, 
202 

Rye, 98 



300 



INDEX. 



Sabeddin Morrifat David. See 
David. 

Sable-skins, 42 

Sacassin, town of, 259 

Sacrifices, to images, 59 ; at funerals, 
81, 82 

Saddles, made by the men, 76 

Safifron-coloured clothes, 145, 146, 
158 

Sahensa, prince of Curgia, 271 ; 
receives William, 272 

Sain Khan, " the Good Prince," 125. 
See also Batu. 

St George, arm of, 8 

St. Sophia, Friar William preaches 
in, 48 

Saksaul, in Comania, 35, 133 ; in 
Mongolia, 172 

Salt, rivers of Kangitae country, 36 ; 
springs of Perekop, 52 ; how used 
by Mongols, 65 ; revenue from, 52, 
92 

Samag, city of, 264 

Samaron, town of, 263 

Samite, 23 ; dresses of, 37, 74, 
203 

Samoyeds, the, 12. 

Saniihu. See Rice Wine. 

Sang^or, a Russian knight, 9 

Santo Siro, trader from, in Yconium, 
277 

Saracens, country of the, 15 ; ambas- 
sadors of, at Mongol court, 20 ; 
origin and early use of name, 48 ; 
among the Mongols drink cosmos y 
91 ; preferred to Russians by Mon- 
gols, 94 ; the Merdas are Saracens, 
100 ; well treated by Sartach, I16 ; 
speaking Persian in Equius, 139; 
in the Uigur country, 141 ; shun 
idolaters, 143 ; live among idolaters, 
157 ; their priests bless Emperor's 
cup, 182 ; their quarter in Cara- 
carum, 211, 221; diviners, 216; 
c)uarrel with Sergius, 223, 224 ; at 
Mangu's court, 226 ; misrepresent 
William's words to Mangu, 227, 
228 ; admit Christian religion true, 

234 

Sarai, town of, built by Baalu, 256 ; 
William reaches it, 258 ; palace of 
13aatu, 260 

Sartach, Batu's son, 48 ; Friar 
Andrew (jn, xxxi ; various modes of 
transcriljing name, 48 ; sui:)poscd to 
be a Christian, 48, 173 ; Bishop of 
Sudak's opinion of, 49 ; his revenue 
from salt of Perekop, 52 ; his vil- 
lage on the Tanais, 96 ; arrival at 
his camp, 98 ; size of camp, loi ; 



audience of, 103 ; accepts presents, 
105; not a Christian, 107, 116; 
has Nestorian priests, 116; gives 
scant supplies to traveller, 117; 
St. Louis believes him a Christian, 
123 ; visits Mangu, 255 ; William 
visits him on return journey, 256 ; 
gives William presents and letter to 
Coiac's father, 257 ; building village 
and church on west bank of Volga, 
260 ; Dominican bearing letters to, 
271, 274 

Sarti, the. See Saracens. 

Sausages, of horse-flesh, 65 

Savag^es, in desert south of Imil, 
162 

Saxi, the, thought to be Goths, 36 

Scatai, possibly the same as Catan, 
8 ; a relative of Batu, 84 ; letter of 
Emperor to, 84 ; his camp, 86 ; his 
wife, ^"j ; interview of Friar William 
with, 87 ; who expounds to him the 
faith, 88 ; gives traveller guides, 91 

Schiban. See Si tan. 

Sclavons, their language, 130 

Sclavonia, 47 

Scum, never taken off pot, 64 

Scytiiia, its limits, 53, 157 

Seal of Kuyuk Khan, 26 

Searching^ persons of those received 
by Emperor, 23, 172, 185 

Seats, assigned different ranks, at 
Batu's court, 10, 123 ; at Kuyuk's 
court, 24 ; given Emperor in Nes- 
torian chapel, 185 

Sebaste, the city of, xxxi, 276 

Segin, city of, 157 

Seine, the Etilia larger than, 1 18 

SemaiitroHy use of the, 116 

Sempad, Constable of Little Ar- 
menia, his letter to King of Cyprus, 
xxviii, xxxi 

Seres, country of, identical with 
Cathay, 155 ; name of a town, 155 

Sergius, the Armenian monk, 168, 
169 ; Friar William decides to stay 
with, 176 ; says he will baptize 
Mangu, 181 ; William lives with 
him, 183 ; makes Mangu fast, 187 ; 
his treatment of Cota, wife of 
Mangu, when ill, 190 ; gets many 
presents, 191 ; gives Cota rhubarb, 
192 ; was a weaver, 193 ; uses 
bishop's chair, gloves and cap, 195 ; 
his presumptuousness, 196; charged 
with disturbing order, 203 ; Mangu 
reprimands him, 203 ; makes his 
peace with the Chan, 204 ; his con- 
troversy with the Nestorian Jonas, 
204, 205 ; helps William to learn 



INDEX. 



301 



Mongol, 205 ; deceives William as 
to his fasting, 206 ; gives William 
Buchier rhubarb, 216 ; charged 
with bewitching, 216 ; his quarrel 
with Nestorians, 217 ; brutality to 
dying Nestorian, 218 ; explains his 
conduct, 219; calls in Saracen 
diviner, 219 ; accompanies Mangu 
on visit to his mother s grave, 223 ; 
quarrels with Saracens, 224 ; gets 
permission to live near Chan's 
palace, 252, 253 

Serkis, Saint, 186 

Sevastopol. See Kersona. 

Sharif^ a Buddhist relic, 195 

Sheep, hy whom tended, 76 

Shih-ivei, the country of, 112 

Shoes, of horse-hide, 65 

Shoulder-blades, divination by, 187, 
188, 194, 203 

Sick people, not visited by Mongols, 
82, 83 

Silk, 23 ; sold at Sudak, 44 ; from 
Cathay and Persia, 70 ; wadding of, 
71 ; called .f^r/V by Cathayans, 155 

Simon of St. Quentin, his narrative 
of Ascelin's mission, xxiv, xxv 

Sing^ng^ when Mongol prince drinks, 
II, 186 ; when Emperor comes out 
of tent, 21 ; as mark of respect, 
138 ; at Emperor's feast, 247 

Sinopolis, the town of, 41 ; distance 
from to Gazaria and to Constanti- 
nople, 42 

Sira-Orda. See Ormektua. 

Siremon, brother of Keu Chan, 163 ; 
his conspiracy against Mangu, 163, 

164 

Sirsan, Sea of, 118. See also C^^^i^n 

Sea. 
Sis. city of, 278 
Sitan, brother of Batu, 15 
Sittarkent, town of, 258 
Sivas. See Sebaste. 
Skulls, human, scattered in desert, 

xxxi, 13 ; made into bowls in 

Tibet, 151 
Slaves, of Mongols, 8 ; C(jmans 

made, 13 ; sold at Sudak, 42, 43 ; 

from the Kipchak, 50 ; their food, 

68 ; from Russia, 94 ; brigandage 

by slaves in Russia, II 7 
Snoiv, falls in June, 17 ; Friar John 

camps in, 30, 31 ; late, at Kara- 

korum, 170 
Snow-shoes, of the Orengai, 198 
Sot^?o-f or marmots, 69 
Solanga, country of, 152 
Solanges, Prince of the, at Mongol 

court, 20 



Soldaia, town of, 43 ; its early names, 

its trade, 43, 44 ; its position, 45 ; 

Friar William arrives at, 47 ; leaves 

it, 49 ; people of, pass through 

Sartach's camp, 116. See a/soSudak. 
Soldan, at Mongol court, 20 
Solinus, his stories of monsters, 36, 

198 
Son, adopted, of William Buchier, 

178, 231 
Soothsayers. Se^ Diviners. 
Sorcerers, how punished, 80 ; of 

Crit and Merkit, 1 1 1 
Sorcery, 195 

Soul, theory concerning, 231 
South, tents face, 56, 57 ; couch of 

host faces, 57 
Spices, sold at Sudak, 44 
Spies, of Mongols, 29, 180 
Spirits, evil, fear of, 83, 272 
Stephen of Bohemia, Friar, 5 ; 

joins Friar John's mission, 33 ; left 

behind, 34 
Stican, kills Keu chan, 163 ; visit to 

his widow, 163 
Stirrups, made by the men, 76 
Stone, magic, 195, 245, 254 
Storm, making of, 245 
Sturgeon, dry, sold, 45 
Su, " water," in Mongol, 196 
Suanians, the. See Suevi. 
Sudak, 43 ; sea of, 94. See also Palus 

Maeotis. 
Suevi, the, 46 
Sulangka, country of, 153 
Su-Moal or Su-Mong:al, the, 112, 

196 ; their mode of living, 197 
Summerkeur, town of, 258 ; inhabi- 
tants of, 258 
Sun, is mother of the moon, 246 
Superstitions, of Mongols, 241 
Susdal, Russian from, acts as Friar 

John's interpreter, 9 ; Duke of, 20 
Sivine, among the Moxel, 99 
Sivords, used to ward off evil, 195 
Syban. See Stican. 
Synagog^ues of Saracens, 273 
Syr daria, the river, 14 
Syrian, language used by Nestorians, 

158 

Tabaristan, sea of, 36 

Tablet, beaten by Christians accord- 
ing to Greek custom, 29 ; carried 
by Longa envoys at court, 154 

Tabooed words, 81 

Tabriz. See Tauris. 

Tachari or Tochari. See Tartars. 

Talas, river, 134, 135 ; town of, 
xxxii, 136 ; its position, 137 



302 



INDEX. 



Tana, town of, 14 ; identified with 
Ornas, 15 

Tanais, town of, 14 ; the river, 
identified by Benedict with the 
Volga, 34 ; town at mouth of river, 
44 ; form of river near mouth, 45 ; 
trade at mouth of river, 45 ; sea 
of, 47, 94 ; boundary of Alania, 
93 ; Friar William reaches the 
river, 96 ; separates Asia from 
Europe, 96 ; ferry over, 96 ; breadth 
of» 97 ; its source, 97, 120 ; forests 
along, 98 ; its course and mouth, 
100, See also Don. 

Tangut, position of country, 150 ; 
cattle of, 151 ; large and swarthy, 
152 \ mode of writing, 202 

Tanning^, process of, 76, 77 

Tar, the river, 1 1 4 

Taraconta, island of, 1 14 

Tarbagatai mountains, 161 

TarkkaUy a Mongol title, 164 

Tarassun. See Terracina. 

TarsUj or Christian, 17 

Tartars, name given the Mongols, 
xiii ; origin of name, xv, xvii, xviii, 
112, 113 ; pun on name, xix ; Friar 
Andrew's report on, xxxi ; Friar 
John first hears accurately of them, 
2 ; they importune travellers for 
presents, 2 ; he first meets them, 5 ; 
explains to them object of mission, 
5, 6 ; also called Mongols, 18 ; they 
rob Friar John, 30 ; first camp of, 34; 
once under rule of Kara-Khitai, 37 ; 
extent of their empire in Europe, 47 ; 
Friar William's first meeting with, 
52 ; their impudence, 83 ; inquisitive- 
ness, 84 ; arrogance, 85 . lying, 85 ; 
suspect Byzantine coin, 90 ; they 
rob Friar William, 91 ; horrible 
aspect of, 92 ; Ruscia ravaged by, 
94 ; their fear of the Pope, 94 ; filthy 
habits of, 95, 96 ; pride of, 107 ; 
united under Chingis Khan, 114; 
why their name was applied to the 
Mongols, 115 ; Rashideddin quoted 
on early history of, 115; their 
victory over Soldan of Turkic, 275. 
See also Mongols. 

Ta-ta, tribes of. See Tartars. 

Tattooing, 142 ; among Kirghiz, 197 

Tauris, xxxii, 265, 267, 271 

Taxes levied by Mongols, 47, 94 ; 
ferrymen exempted from, 97 

Tebet, country of, 151 ; customs of, 
151 ; gold in, 152 ; people mis- 
shapen, 152 ; mode of writing, 202 

Tefilis, city of, 264, 274 

Temer, a Russian knight, 27 



Temples, of idolaters in Cailac, 142 ; 
description of, 143, 144 ; orienta- 
tion of, 143, 144 ; services in, 145 ; 
gates of, 146 ; poles over, 146 ; in 
Caracarum, 221 

Tench, dried, 45 

Tengere Kaira Khan, the highest 
of Shamans' gods, 236 

Tengriy Heaven, object of Mongol 
worship, 236 

Tent, of linen used by Batu, 10 ; 
arrangement of Batu's, 1 1 ; of white 
purple, 19 ; gates of great tent, 19 ; 
the golden tent (orda), 22 ; tent of 
red purple, 24 ; doors of Sira Orda, 
38 ; Mongol tents, 53, 54, 55 ; 
on carts, 54, 55 ; facing south, 
56 ; order in which placed, 56 ; of 
servant women, 56 ; east side for 
women, 57 ; right side for men, 
58 ; guardian deity of, 58 ; of 
Mangu, covered inside with cloth of 
gold, 172 ; Nestorians do not cele- 
brate mass in, 184 ; used by William 
in Caracarum, 212 

Terracina, or beer, 62, 166, 173, 208 

Teutonic order, 94 

Teutons, slaves at Talas, 136 ; trans- 
ferred to Bolat, 137 ; their occupa- 
tion, 137 ; William asks Mangu to 
let him come back to teach them, 
238. See also Germans. 

Tharsi, country of, 114 

Theodulus. See Raymond of Aeon. 

Thomas, Friar, Provincial of Order, 
170 

Thread, made of tendons, 75 

Threshold, must not be trodden on, 
7, 10, 23, 104, 188 ; Bartholomew 
strikes threshold, 189 

Throne, of Batu, 10 ; of Kuyuk, 24, 
26, 38 ; of Solomon, 209 

Thunder, caused by washing clothes, 
75 ; great fear of, by Mongols, 75, 
76 

Tibet. See Tebet. 

T'ieh-le, the, a Turkish tribe, 54 

Tigris, the river, its source, 267 

Togrul Khan, 1 10. See Unc chan. 

Torture, to produce confession, 79 ; 
inflicted on woman, 243 

Tossuc-can. See Juchi. 

Touching holy images, 184 

Trade, of Kersona, 42 ; of Sudak, 
43, 44 ; at mouth of Tanais (Don), 
45 ; of I'erekop in salt, 52 

Transmigration, 231, 232 

Trapesund, See Trebizonde. 

Travel, rate of, among the Mongols 
85, 127 ; Friar William's rate, 131 



INDEX. 



303 



Trebizonde, Friar William's error as I 
to reigning Emperor, 46 ; history ' 
of, 46 

Tree, planted over tomb, 81 | 

Tribute, paid Mongols, 47; by 
Cathayans, 156 ; by Turks, 248 

Tripoli, William arrives at, 279 

Tugh^ insignia of royalty, 20 

Tuin^ priest of idols, 159 ; pray facing 
north, 171 ; discussion with, 230-5 

Tului, his sons, 222 

Tungus, the, 197 

Turakina, the Empress, receives 
Friar John, 19 ; leaves Emperor's 
court after election, 25 ; suspected 
of poisoning Yaroslaw of Susdal, 
25 ; makes presents to Friar John, 
30 ; receives the Friars, 39 

Turbans, 247 

Turcomans, occupy country of Orga- 
num, 140 ; early mention of, 140 ; 
origin of name, 141 

TurWian Khan, his speech to Valen- 
tius, 174 

Turks, the, 12 ; tie their gowns on 
left side, 73 ; early mention of, 109, 
141 ; ask Con cham's aid against 
Franks, 109 ; Seldjuks take name 
of, 141 

Turkic, the country of, 37 ; towns 
in, 37 ; Soldan of, 41 ; merchants 
from visit Sudak, 44 ; mentioned 
by Friar John, 109 ; Mangu sends 
army against, 222 ; presents brought 
by envoys from, 248 ; William 
reaches, 272 ; battle of Soldan of, 
with Mongols, 275 ; Soldan receives 
William, 277 ; political condition 
of, 280 

Tivig^s, divination by, 195 

Uduyut, the, 1 1 1 . See also Merkit. 

Ujug^en, his conspiracy, 25 

Ultis^ or appanage, 16 

Uig^S, their creed, 17 ; were a tribe 
of the T'ieh-le, 54 ; war with the 
Tartars, 113. See also \\\^\\x<i,. 

Ukek, village of, 120 

Ulag Yassak, or Great Ordinances of 
Chingis Khan, 79 

Ulungur, lake and river, 161 ; in 
Naiman country, 163; Friar William 
follows river's course, 165, 255 

Umbrella carried over Mongol 
princes, 11, 23 

Unc chan, 37 ; brother and heir of 
King John, no, 114; origin of 
name, no, ni; his country, in, 
150 ; defeated by Chingis Khan, n5 

Unguents, use of, 87, 195 



Ural, the river, 36, 129 ; salt springs 

near, 37. ^^^Jaec. 
Urda. See Ordu. 
Urfah, head-dress of women, 74 
Ur^endj, 14. See also Ornas. 
Unanghit bishe. See Orengai. 
Urine, 156 
Urmukhtin, 22 

Vaire furs, sold at Sudak, 44 ; mean- 
ing of word, 44 ; worn by Armenian 
monk, 169 ; used as currency in 
Russia, 202 

Valania, 93. 6'^^Comania. 

Valans, 93. See Comans. 

Valentius, envoy of Tiberius Con- 
stantinus, 174 

Vassilko, Duke of Ruscia, his ad- 
vice to Friar John, 2 ; he helps 
him on his journey, 3 ; Friar John 
reads him letters of Pope, urging 
him to return to Roman Church, 3 ; 
greets Friar John on return, 32 ; 
sends envoy and message to Pope, 

Vastacius, country of, 47 ; his envoys 
at Mangu's camp, 169 ; meet 
William, 170 ; imprisons false 
envoy Theodulus, icSi ; Mangu 
sends army against, 222 ; Mongol 
envoy's advice to, 226 ; his am- 
bassadors, how treated in Turkie, 
273 ; his son, 281 

Vines, 135, 199 

Virgil, quoted, 265 

Vlachs, origin of name, 47 

Volga, the river, first called by this 
name by Friar John, 8 ; he thinks 
it empties into Black Sea, 9 ; 
mentioned by Benedict, 34 ; classi- 
cal geographers' views on, 34, 107. 
See also Etilia and Ethil. 

Votiak, head-dress of women, 74 

Wall of China, the Great, xxxi 
Wandals, invade Europe with the 

Huns, 130 ; their language, 130 
Wang Yen-te, Chinese envoy to the 

Uigurs, 22 
Washing, not allowed by Mongols, 

75, 76 ; mode of washing hands 

and face, T] 
Water, never drunk by Mongols, 68 
Wax, much obtained in Moxels' 

country, 99 
Wenceslaw I, King of Bohemia, i 
West side, tent of Emperor or chiei 

entered by Emperor or chief alone 

on, 23 
Wives, of Mangu, 172, 173 



304 



INDEX. 



Wheat, does not thrive in Russia, 98 

Widoivs, do not re-marry, "]"] ; he- 
long to son of deceased father, 78 

Wild, men, their habits, various men- 
tions of, 16 ; asses, 69 

William, clerk of Odon the Legate, 

179 

William, Friar, of Rubruck, meets 
Friar John of Pian de Carpine m 
Paris, xxvi ; his early history, xxvi, 
xxvii ; goes to Egypt, xxx ; gets in- 
formation from Baldwin of Hainaut, 
xxxiv ; choice of routes, xxxiv ; 
preparations for journey, xxxiv ; his 
birthplace, xxxv ; name, xxxv ; 
character, xxxvi ; studies and pre- 
paration for journey, xxxvi, xxxvii ; 
discoveries made by, xxxvii, xxxviii; 
returns to France, xxxix ; meets 
Roger Bacon, xxxix ; Franciscan 
writers on Friar William, xl, xli ; 
titles given his work, xl ; editions 
of, xxxix, xlii, xliii ; opinions con- 
cerning his work, xliii, xliv 

Winchester, Bishop of, xiv 

Wind, tempest of, through Ala tau. 
Friar John's reference to, 16; Friar 
William's reference to, 160 ; little 
wind in Mongolia in winter, 170 

Wine, muscadcl, 49 ; libations before 
drinking, 60, 61 ; whence brought 
to Mongols, 62 ; drunk at Kin- 
chat, 135 ; of rice, 166 ; red wine, 
186 ; no wine in Cathay, 199 ; in 
Caucasus, 262 

Witchcraft, princesses put to death 
for, 164 ; practised by women, 239 ; 
maid of Mangu's wfe accused of, 
243 ; woman put to death for, 244 ; 
Mangu accuses Camus of, 250 



Wives, seats assigned to, of Batu, 
10 ; tents of Emperor's, 25 ; num- 
ber of Batu's, 56 ; size of their 
camps, 56 ; which has precedence, 
61 ; plurality of, among Tartars 
and Nestorians, 158 ; of Keu Chan 
j put to death, 164 
Women, position assigned them in 
tents, 10, 210; their tents, 56; 
dress of, 72, 73, 74 ; use unguents, 
74, 75 ; duties of, 57, 59, 75 ; are 
chaste, 79 
Wood, for fuel, scarce, 133 
Wormwood, in Comania, 35 ; used 
' for fuel in Mangu's tent, 172 
Worship, of image of Emperor, 35 
Writing, of Nestorians of Organum, 
141 ; of Tartars, borrowed from 
Uigurs, 147 ; at what time, 149 ; 
of Tibet, 202 ; of Tanguts and 
Uigurs, 202 ; of Cathayans, 202 

Yaks, in Tangut, 151 
Yanikent. See Yenguikhend. 
Yaroslaw, son of Duke, at Bati's 
camp, 9 ; Duke's men die of thirst 
in Cangitae desert, 13 ; Duke at 
Kuyuk's court, 20 ; his death, 25 
Yconium, 276 ; foreigners in, 277 
Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai, Minister of 

Chingis, 193 
Yeh-lu Ta-shih, 108 
Yenguikend, town of, 14 
Yen-ta women, head-dress of, 74 
Yperpera^ a Byzantine coin, 90, 126 

! Zacharias, father of Sahensa, 271 
Zacharias, son of Sahensa, 272 

I Zicci, the, 12 
Zikuia, the country of, 45, 46 



LONDON : 
HKINTKD AT THE BKDFOKU PRKSS, 20 AND 2T, BEDFORDBURY, W.C. 



THE 

HAKLUYT SOCIETY. 

1900. 



President. 

Sir CLEMENTS MARKHAM, K.C.B., F.R.S., Pres. R.G.S. 

Vice-Presidents. 

The Right Hon. The Lord STANLEY of ALDERLEY. 
Rear- Admiral Sir WILLIAM WHARTON. K.C.B., F.R.S. 



Council. 
C. RAYMOND BEAZLEY, M A. 
Colonel G. EARL CHURCH. 
Sir W. MARTIN CONWAY. 
ALBERT GRAY. 

F. H. H. GUILLEMARD, M.A., M.D. 
EDWARD HEAWOOD, M.A. 
DUDLEY F. A. HERVEY, C.M.G. 
Admiral Sir A. H. HOSKINS, G.C.B. 
J. SCOTT KELTIE, LL.D. 



F. W. LUCAS. 

A. P. MAUDS LAY. 

MAJOR M. NATHAN, C.M.G., RE. 

E. J. PAYNE. M.A. 

E. G. RAVENSTEIN. 

HOWARD SAUNDERS. 

H. W. TRINDER. 

CHARLES WELCH, F.S.A. 



Hon. Secretary and (pro tem.) Treasurer. 
WILLIAM FOSTER, B.A., Bordean, Holly Road, Wanstead, N.E. 

Bankers in London. 
Messrs. BARCLAY ^ Co., i, Pall Mall East, S.W. 

Bankers in New York. 

THE MORTON TRUST CO., corner of Cedak and Nassau Streets. 

Agent for distribution, &c., of Volumes. 
Mr. B. QUARITCH, 15, Piccadilly, W. 



Annual Subscription.— One Guinea (in America Ave dollars.) 



THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY, established in 1846, has for its 
object the printing of rare or unpublished Voyages and Travels. 
Books of this class are of the highest interest and value to students 
of history, geography, navigation, and ethnology ; and many of them, 
especially the original narratives and translations of the Elizabethan 



and Stuart periods, are admirable examples of English prose at the 
stage of its most robust development. 

The Society has not confined its selection to the books of English 
travellers, to a particular age, or to particular regions. Where the 
original is foreign, the work is given in English, fresh translations 
being made, except where it is possible to utilise the spirited renderings 
of the sixteenth or seventeenth century. 

More than a hundred volumes have now been issued by the Society. 
The majority of these illustrate the history of the great age of discovery 
which forms the foundation of modern history. The discovery of 
America, and of particular portions of the two great western continents, 
is represented by the writings of Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, 
Cortes and Champlain, and by several of the early narratives from 
Hakluyt's collection. The works relating to the conquest of Peru, 
and to the condition of that country under the Incas, are numerous 
and of the highest value ; similar interest attaches to Strachey's 
Virginia Britannia^ De Soto's Discovery of Florida^ and Sir 
Robert Schomburgk's edition of Raleigh's Discoverie of Guiana. 
The works relating to Africa already published comprise 
Barbosa's Coasts of East Africa^ the Portuguese Embassy to 
Abyssinia of Alvarez, and The Travels of Leo the Moor. 
Notices of Australia, India, Persia, China, Japan, etc., as 
they appeared in early times to European eyes, both before and 
after the discovery of the Cape route, are also included in the 
series, a well-known example being the work on Cathay and the Way 
Thither^ contributed by a former President, Sir Henry Yule. The 
search for the North-west and North-east Passages is recorded in 
the narratives of Jenkinson, De Veer, Frobisher, Davis, Hudson, 
Baffin, etc.; whilst more extensive voyages are signalised by the 
great names of Magellan, Drake, and Hawkins. 

The works selected by the Council for reproduction are printed 
(with rare exceptions) at full length. Each volume is placed in the 
charge of an editor especially competent — in many cases from personal 
acquaintance with the countries described — to give the reader such 
assistance as he needs for the elucidation of the text. Whenever 
possible, the interest of the volumes is increased by the addition of 
reproductions of contemporary portraits, maps, and other illustrations. 

As these editorial services are rendered gratuitously, the whole of 
the amount received fro7n subscribers is expended in the preparation 
of the Society* s publications . 

The subscription should be paid to the Society's Bankers on the 
1st January in each year. This entitles the subscriber to receive, 
free of charge, the current pubHcations of the Society. Usually two 
volumes are issued each year ; but it is hoped to add from time to 



time a third volume, whenever the state of the funds will permit. 
Members have the sole privilege of purchasing sets of the previous 
publications ; and the more recent of the Society's volumes are also 
reserved exclusively for its subscribers. In addition, they are allowed 
a special discount of 1 5 per cent, on the volumes permitted to be 
sold to the public. It may be mentioned that the publications of the 
Society tend to rise in value, and those which are out of print are now 
only to be obtained at high prices. 

The present scale of charges for back volumes is as follows : — 

To MKMBKKS.—Sfts of the First *5eries, omitting Nos. i-io, 12, 19, 25, 36, 37, to be 
sold for ........ . net ;C30. 

N.B. — Most of t fie out-of-print volumes have been, or are being y reprinted 
as later volumes of the series. 
Nos. 82-87, 90-100, at ...... net tOj. 

Nos. 88, 89, at . . . . net 1 5j. 



To THE Public Generally.-^ limited number of single copies ai^ (oWows :— 

Nos. 23, 26, 29, 31, 34, 40, 47, 50, at ... . Ss. Qd. 

Nos. 21,24, 28, 30, 35, 46, 48, 51, 53, 55, 56, 58, 60 to 81, at . . 10*. 

Nos. 20, 27, 33, 38, 41 to 45, 49, 52, 57, at . . . 15s. 

Nos. 54 and 59, at ... . ... 20*. 

*ft* Subject in case of Members to a discount of 15%. 

The volumes oj t/ie Second Series can only be obtained by paying the 
ai-rears of subscription. 

A list of works in preparation is given at page 11. The Secretary 
will be happy to furnish any further information that may be desired. 

Gentlemen desiring to be enrolled as members should send their 
names to the Secretary. Applications for back volumes should be 
addressed to Mr. Quaritch. 



WORKS ALREADY ISSUED. 

FIRST SERIES. 

1 -The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt., 

In his Voyage into the South Sea in 1593. Reprinted from the edition of 
1622, and edited by Capt C. R. D. Bethune, R.N., C.B. 

( First Edition out 0/ print. See A'o 57.^ Issued fo'- \'^a^^. 

2— Select Letters of Columbus, 

With Original Documents relating to the Discovery of the New World. Trans- 
lated and Edited by R. H. Major. 
(First Edition out of print See No, 43. ) Issued for 184^. 

3— The Discoverie of the Empire of Guiana. 

t>y Sir Walter Raleigh, Knt. Edited by Sir Robert H. Schomburgk, 

Ph.D. 
( First Edition ow of print. Second Edition in prepnra'ion,) Issued for 1850. 

4— Sir Francis Drake his Voyage, 1595, 

By Thomas Maynarde, together with the Spanish Account of Drake's attack 
on Puerto Rico. Edited by W. D. Cooley. 

( Out of print. ) Issued for \ 850. 



5— Narratives of Early Voyasres to the North- West. 
Edited by Thomas Rundall. 

(Out of print. ) Issued for 1 85 1 . 

6— The Historie of Travaile into Virfirinia Britannia, 

Exj>ressing the Cosmographie and Commodities of the Country, together with 

ihc manners and customs of the people, collected by William Stracney, Gent., 

the first Secretary of the Colony. Edited by R. H. Major. 

( Out of print, ) Issued for 1 8 5 1 . 

7 - Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America 

And the Islands adjacent, collected and published by Richard Hakluyi, 
Prebendary of Bristol, in the year 1582. Edited by John Winter JoNEi. 

( Out of print, ) Issued for 1 852. 

8- A Collection of Documents on Japan. 

With a Commentary by Thomas Rundall. 

( Out of print, ) Issued for 1852. 

9 The Discovery and Conquest of Florida, 

By Don Ferdinand© de Soto. Translated out of Portuguese bv Richard 

Hakluyt ; and Edited by W. B. Rye. 

( Ouc of print, ) Issued for 1 853. 

10 Notes upon Russia, 

Being a Translation from the Earliest Account of that Country, entitled Rerum 
Muscoviticarum Commentarii, by the Baron Sigismund von Herberstein, 
Ambassador from the Court of Germany to the Grand Prince Vasiley Ivanovich, 
in ihr years 1517 and 1526. Two Volumes. Translated and Edited by 
R. H. Major. Vol. i. 

(Out of print.) Issued for 1853. 

11 -The Geography of Hudson's Bay, 

liemg the Remarks of Captain W. Coats, in many Voyages to that locality, 
between the years 1727 and 1751. With Extracts from the Log of Captain 
Middleton on his Voyage for the Discovery of the North-west Passage, in 
H.M.S. **Fumace," m 1741-2. Edited by John Barrow, F.R.S., F.S.A. 

Issued for 1854. 

12 -Notes upon Russia. 

Vol.2. {Out of print.) Issued for 1%^^. 

18 -Three Voyages by the North-East, 

Towards Cathay and China, undertaken by the Dutch ni the years 1594, 1595 

and 1596, with their Discovery of Spitzbergen, their residence often months in 

Novaya Zemlya, and their safe return in two open boats. By Gerrit de Veer. 

Edited by C. T. Beke, Ph.D., F.S.A. 

(See also A^o. 54. j Issued for 1855. 

14-15— The History of the Great and Mighty Kingdom of China and 
the Situation Thereof. 

Compiled by the Padre Juan Gonzalez de Mendoza. Reprinted from the 

Early Translation of R. Parke, and Edited by Sir George T. Staunton, 

Bart. With an Introduction by R. H. Major. 2 vols. 

Issued for 185$. 

16— The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake. 

Being his next Voyage to that to Nombre de Dios. Collated with an 
unpublished Manuscript of Francis Fletcher, Chaplain to the Expedition. 
Edited by W. S. W. Vaux, M. A. Issued for 1856. 



5 

17 -The History of the Tartar Conquerors who subdued China. 

From the French of the Pere D'Orleans, 1688. Translated and Edited by the 

Earl of Ellesmerk. With an Introduction by R. H. Major. 

Issued for 1856. 

18~A Colleetion of Early Documents on Spitzbergen and Greenland. 
Edited by Adam White. Issued for 1857. 

19— The Voyage of Sir Henry Mlddleton to Bantam and the Maluco Islands 
From the rare Edition of 1606. Edited by Bolton Corney. 

( Out of print). Issued for 1857. 

20-Russia at the Close of the Sixteenth Century. 

Comprising "The Russe Commonwealth'' by Dr. Giles Fletcher, and Sir 

Jerome Horsey's Travels. Edited by E. A. Bond. 

Issued for 1858. 

21— The Travels of Girolamo Benzoni in America, in 1642-66. 
Tinnslated and Edited by Admiral W. H. Smyth, F.R.S., F.S.A. 

Issued for 1858. 

22 India in the Fifteenth Century. 

Being a Collection of Narratives of Voyages to India in the century pieceding 

the Portuguese discovery of the Cape of Good Hope ; from Latin, Persian, 

Russian, and Italian Sources. Edited by R. H. Majok. 

Issued for 1859. 

23 -Narrative of a Voyage to the West Indies and Mexico, 
In the years 1599-1602, vy^ith Maps and Illustrations. By Samuel Champlain. 
Translated from the original and unpublished Manuscript, with a Biographical 
Notice and Notes by Alice Wilmere. Issued for 1859. 

24— Expeditions into the Valley of the Amazons 
During the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries : containing the Journey of 
Gonzalo Pizarro, from the Royal Commentaries of Garcilasso Inca de la Vega ; 
the Voyage of Francisco de Orellana, from the General History of Hcrrera ; 
and the Voyage of Cristoval de Acuna. Translated and Edited by Clements 
R. M\kkham. Issued for i860. 

25 -Early Indications of Australia. 

A Collection of Documents shewing the Early Discoveries of Australia to the 

time of Captain Cook. Edited by R. H. Major. 

( Out of print. ) Issued for 1 860. 

26 -The Embassy of Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo to the Court of Timour, 1403-6. 

Translated and Edited by Clements K. Markmam. 

Issued for 186 1. 
27— Henry Hudson the Navigator. 
The Original Documents in which his career is recorded. Edited by George 
/^SHER, LL.D. Issued f Of 1861. 

28 -The Expedition of Ursua and Aguirre, 

In search of El Dorado and Omagua, a.d. 1560-61. Translated from the 

" Sexta Noticia Historiale" of Fray Pedro Simon, by W. B«)i.laert, with 

an Introduction by Clkments K. Markham. 

Issued for 1862. 

29- The Life and Acts of Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman. 

Translated and Edited by Clements R. Markham. 

Issued for (86?. 



/ 



30— Discoveries of the World 

From their first original unlo the year of our Lord 1555. By Antonio Galvano. 
Reprinted, with ihc original Portuguese text, and edited by Vice- Admiral 
Beth u N E, C. B. Issued for \ 863 . 

31— Marvels described by Friar Jordanus, 

From a parchment manuscript of the Fourteenth Century, in Latin. Edited 
by Colonel H. Yule, C.B. Issued for 1863. 

32— The Travels of Ludovico di Varthema 

In Syria, Arabia, Persia, India, etc., during the Sixteenth Century. Translated 
by J. Winter Jones, F.S.A., and Edited by the Kev. George 
Percy Badger. Issued for 1864. 

33— The Travels of Cieza de Leon in 1532-50 

From the Gulf of Darien to the City of La Plata, contained in the first part of 
his Chronicle of Peru (Antwerp, 1554). Translated and Edited by Clements 
R. Mark HAM. Issued for 1864. 

34— The Narrative of Pascual de Andagoya. 

Containing the earliest notice of Peru. Translated and Edited by Clements 

R. Markham. Issued for 1865. 

35 -The Coasts of East Aft*ica and Malabar 

In the beginning of the Sixteenth Century, by Duarte Barbosa. Translated 
from an early Spanish manuscript by the Hon. Henry Stanley. 

Issued for 1865. 
36-37 - Cathay and the Way Thither. 
A Collection of all minor notices of China, previous to the Sixteenth 
Century. Translated and Edited by Colonel H. Yule, C.B. Two Vols. 

( Out of print. ) /ssued for 1 866. 

38— The Three Voyages of Sir Martin Frobisher. 

With a Selection from Letters now in the State Paper Office. Edited by 
Rear-Admiral Collinson, C.B. Isstted for i^^T . 

39 -The Philippine Islands, 
Moluccas, Siam, Cambodia, Japan, and China, at the close of the 1 6th Century. 
By Antonia de Morga. Translated from the Spanish, with Notes, by 
the Lord Stanley of Alderley. Issued for 1868. 

40— The Fifth Letter of Hernan Cortes 

To the Emperor Charles V., containing an Account of his Expedition to 
Honduras in 1525-26. Translated from the Spanish by Don Pascual dk 

Gayangos. Issued for 1868. 

41— The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. 
By the Ynca Garcillasso de la Vega. Translated and Edited by Clements 
R. Markham. Vol. i. f ssued for x^df^. 

42— The Three Voyages of Vasco da Gama, 

And his Viceroyalty, from the Lendas da India of Caspar Correa; accompanied 
by original documents. Translated and Edited by the Lord Stanley 

of Alderley. Issued for 1869. 

43— Select Letters of Christopher Columbus, 
With other Original Documents relating to his Four Voyages to the New 
World. Translated and Edited by R. H. Major. 2nd Edition (see No. 2). 

Issued for 1870. 



44— History of the Im&ms and Seyyids of *OmA,n, 

By Salil-Ibn-Razik, from a.d. 661-1856. Translated from the original 
Arabic, and Edited, with a continuation of the History down to 1870, by the 
Rev. George Percy Badger. Issued for 1870. 

45— The Royal Commentaries of the Yncas. 

Vol. 2. Issued for 1871. 

46 -The Canarian, 

Or Book of the Conquest and Conversion of the Canarians in the year 1402, 

by Messire Jean de Beihencourt, Kt. Composed by Pierre Bontier and Jean 

le Verrier. Translated and Edited by R. H. Major. 

Issued for 187 1. 
47— Reports on the Discovery of Peru. 
Translated and Edited by Clements R. Markham, C.B. 

Issued for 1872. 
48— Narratives of the Rites and Laws of the Yncas. 
Translated and Edited by Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. 

Issued for 1872. 

49 -Travels to Tana and Persia, 

By Josafa Barbaro and Ambrogio Contarini ; Edited by Lord Stanley of 
Alderley. With Narratives of other Italian Travels in Persia. Translated and 
Edited by Charles Grey. Issued for 1873. 

50— Voyasres of the Zeni 
To the Northern Seas in the Fourteenth Century. Translated and Edited 
by R. H. Major. Issued for 1873. 

51 -The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse in 1547-55, 

Amoncj the Wild Tribes of Eastern Brazil. Translated by Albert Todtal, 
Esq., and annotated by Sir Richard F. Burton. 

Issued for 1874. 

62— The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan. 

Translated from the Accounts of Pigafetta and other contemporary writers. 
Edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley. 

Issued for 1874. 

53 -The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque, 

Second Viceroy of India. Translated from the Portugue-e Edition ol 1774, 
and Edited by Walter de Gray Birch, F.R.S. L. Vol. i. 

Issued for 1875. 

54 -Three Voyages to the North-East. 
Second Edition of Gerrit de Veer's Three Voyages to the North- East by 
Barents. Edited by Lieut. Koolemans Beynen, of the Royal Dutch Navy. 

Issued for iSy6. 
55— The Commentaries ot the Great Afonso Dalboquerque. 

Vol. 2. Issued for 187$. 

56— The Voyages of Sir James Lancaster. 

With Abstracts of Journals of Voyages preserved in the India Office, and the 

Voyage of Captain John Knight to seek the N. W. Passage. Edited by 

Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. 

Issued for 1877. 

57- The Observations of Sir Richard Hawkins, Knt., 
In his Voyage into the South Sea in 1593, with the Voyages of his grand- 
father William, his father Sir John, and his cousin William Hawkins. 
Second Edition (see No. i). Edited by Clements R. Markham, C.B., 

F.R.S. Isiuedfor 1877. 



8 

58— The Bondasre and Travels of Johann SchiltbePfirer, 
From his capture at the battle of Nicopolis in 1396 to his escape and return 
to Europe in 1427. Translated by Commander J. Buchan Telfer, R.N.; 
with Notes by Professor B. Bruun. Issued for 1878. 

59— The Voyages and Works of John Davis the Navigator. 
Edited by Captain Albert H. Markham, R.N. Issued for 1878. 

The Map of the World, A.D. 1600. 
Called by Shakspere ** The New Map, with the Augmentation of the Indies." 
To illustrate the Voyages of John Davis. Issued for 1878. 

60-61— The Natural and Moral History of the Indies. 
By Father Joseph de Acosta. Reprinted from the English Translated Edition 
of Edward Grimston, 1604; and Edited by Clements R. Markham, C.B., 
F. R. S. Two Vols. Issued for 1879. 

Map of Peru. 
To Illustrate Nos. 33, 41, 45, 60, and 61. Issued for 1879. 

62 -The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque. 

Vol. 3. Issued for 1880. 

63-The Voyages of William Baffin, 1612-1622. 
Edited by Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. Issued for 1880. 

64— Narrative of the Portuguese Embassy to Abyssinia 
During the years 1520-1527. By Father Francisco Alvarez. Translated and 
Edited by Lord Stanley of Alderley. Issued for 1881. 

65— The History of the Bermudas or Somer Islands. 
Attributed to Captain Nathaniel Butler. Edited by General Sir J. Henry 
Lefroy, R.A., K.C.M.G. Issued for 1881. 

66-67 -The Diary of Richard Cocks, 

Cape-Merchant in the English Factory m Japan, 161 5-1622. Edited by 

Edward Maunde Thompson. Two Vols. 

Issued for 1882. 
68— The Second Part of the Chronicle of Peru. 
By Pedro de Cieza de Leon. Translated and Edited by Clements R. 
Markham, C.B., F.R.S. Issued for 1883. 

69— The Commentaries of the Great Afonso Dalboquerque. 

Vol. 4. Issued for 1883. 

70-71— The Voyage of John Huyghen van Linschoten to the East Indies. 

From the Old English Translation of 1 598. The First Book, contaming his 
Description of the East. Edited by A. C. Hurnell, Ph.D., CLE., and 
P. A. TiELh, of Utrecht. Issued for 1884. 

72-73— Early Voyages and Travels to Russia and Persia, 

By Anthony I enkinson and other hnglishmen, with some account of the first 

Intercourse of the English with Russia and Central Asia by way of the 

Caspian Sea. Edited by E. Delmar Morgan, and C. H Co«»te. 

Issued for 188$. 
74 -The Diary of William Hedges, Esq., 
Afterwards Sir William Hedges, during his Agency m Bengal ; as well as on 
his Voyage out and Return Overland (1681-1687). Transcribed for the Press, 
with Introductory Notes, etc., by R. Barlow, and Illustrated by copious 
Extracts from Unpublished Records, etc., by Col. Sir H. Yule, K.C.S.I., 
R.E., C.B., LL.D. Vol. i. The Diary. Issued for 1886. 



75— The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. 
Vol. 2. Sir H. Yule's Extracts from Unpublished Records, etc. 

Issued for 1886. 

76-77 -The Voyage of Francois Pyrard to the East Indies, 

The Maldives, the Moluccas and Brazil. Translated into English from the 

Third French Edition of 1619, and Edited by Albert Gray, assisted by 

H. C. P. Bell. Vol. i. Vol. 2, Part I. 

Issued for 1887. 

78— The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. 

Vol. 3. Sir H. Yule's Extracts from Unpublished Records, etc. 

Issued for 1888. 

79— Tractatus de Globis, et eorum usu. 
A Treatise descriptive of the Globes constructed by Emery Molyneux, and 
Published in 1592. By Robert Hues. Edited by Clements R. Markham, 
C.b., F.R.S. To which is appended, 
Sailing Directions for the Circumnavigation of England, 
And for a Voyage to the Straits of Gibraltar. From a Fifteenth Century 
MS. Edited by James Gairdner ; with a Glossary by E. Delmar 

Morgan. Issued for 1888. 

80— The Voyage of Francois Pyrard to the East Indies, etc. 

Vol. 2, Part II. Issued for 1889. 

81— The Conquest of La Plata, 1535-1555. 
I. — Voyage of Ulrich Schmidt to the Rivers La Plata and Paraguai. II. — 
The Commentaries of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Edited by Don Luis 
L. Dominguez. Issued for 1889. 

82-83— The Voyage of Francois Leguat 

To Rodriguez, Mauritius, Java, and the Cape of Good Hope. Edited by 
Captain Pasfield Oliver. Two Vols. 

Issued for 1890. 

84-85— The Travels of Pietro della Valle to India. 

From the Old English Translation of 1664, by G. Havers. Edited by 
Edward Grey. Two Vols. Issued for i^i. 

86— The Journal of Christopher Columbus 

During his First Voyage (1492-93), and Documents relating to the Voyages 
of John Cabot and Gaspar Corte Real. Translated and Edited by Clemknts 
R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. Issued for 1892. 

87— Early Voyages and Travels in the Levant. 

I. — The Diary of Master Thomas Dallam, 1599-1600. II. — Extracts from the 
Diaries of Dr. John Covel, 1670-1679. With some Account of the Levant 
Company of Turkey Merchants. Edited by J. Theodore Bent, F.S.A., 

F. R.G. S. Issued for 1892. 

88-89— The Voyages of Captain Luke Foxe and Captain Thomas James 

In Search of a N.-W. Passage, 1631-32; with Narratives of Earlier N.-W. 
Voyages. Edited by Miller Christy, F.L.S Two Vols. 

Issued for 1893. 

90— The Letters of Amerigo Vespucci 

And other Documents relating to his Career. Translated and Edited by 
Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. Issued for 1894. 

B 



lO 

91~Tbe Voyage of Pedro Sarmiento to the Strait of Magellan, 1579-80. 

Translated and Edited, with Illustrative Documents and Introduction, by 
Clements R. Markham, C.B., F.R.S. 

Issued for 1894. 

92-93-94— The History and Description of AfHca, 

And of the Notable Things Therein Contained. The Travels of Leo Africanus 

the Moor, from the English translation of John Pory (1600). Edited by 

Robert Brown, M.A., Ph.D. Three Vols. 

Issued for 1895. 

95— The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. 

Written by Gomes Eannes de Azurara. Translated and Edited by C. R a.ymon d 
Beazley, M.A., and Edgar Prestage, B.A. Vol. i. 

Issued for 1896. 

96-97— Danish Arctic Expeditions. 

Book I. The Danish Expeditions to Greenland, 1605-07; with James Hall's 

Voyage in 1612. Edited by C. C. A. GoscH. Issued for 1896. 

Book 2. Jens Munk's Voyage to Hudson's Bay in 1619-20. Edited by 
C. C. A. GoscH. Issued for 1897. 

98— The Toposrraphia Christiana of Cosmas Indicopleustes. 

Translated and Edited by J. W. McCrindle, M.A., M.R.A.S. 

Issued for 1897. 

99~The First Voyage of Vasco da Gama. 

Translated from the Portuguese, with an Introduction and Notes, by E. G. 

Ravenstein. Issued for 1898. 

100— The Discovery and Conquest of Guinea. 

Written by Gomes Eannes de Azurara. Translated and Edited by C. 

Raymond Beazley, M.A., and Edgar Prestage, B.A. Vol. 2. 

Issued for 1898. 



SECOND SERIES. 

1-2— The Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the Court of the Great Mogul, 

1615-19. 

Edited from Contemporary Records by William Foster, B.A. 

Issued for 1899. 

3— The Voyage of Sir Robert Dudley to the West Indies and Guiana in 1594. 

Edited by Geo. F. Warner, M.A., F.S.A., Assistant Keeper of 
Manuscripts, British Museum. Issued for 1899. 

4— The Journeys of William of Rubruck and John of Plan de Carpine 

To Tartary in the 1 3th century. Translated and Edited by the Hon. W. W. 

Rock HILL. Issued for 1900. 



II 



OTHEB WOBKS UNDESTAEEIT BY EDITOBS. 



Raleigh's Empire of Guiana. Second Edition (see No. 3). Edited, with 
Notes, etc., by Everard F. im Thurn, C.B., C.M.G. 

The Strange Adventures of Andrew Battell of Leigh in Essex. Edited by 
E. G. Ravenstein. 

Histoire de la Grande Isle Madagascar, par le Sieur De Flacourt, 166 1. 
Translated and Edited by Captain S. Pasfield Oliver. 

The Voyages of Cadamosto, the Venetian, along the West Coast of Africa, in 

the years 1455 and 1456. Translated from the earliest Italian text of 

1507, and Edited by H. YuLE Oldham, M.A., F.R.G.S. 
The Voyages of the Earl of Cumberland, from the Records prepared by 

order of the Countess of Pembroke. Edited by W. de Gray Birch, 

LL.D., F.S.A. 
The Voyage of Alvaro de Mendafia to the Solomon Islands in 1 568. Edited 

by the Lord Amherst of Hackney and Basil H. Thomson. 
De Laet's Commentarius de Imperio Magni Mogolis (1631). Translated 

and Edited by Sir Roper Lethbridge, K.C.I.E., M. A. 
The Voyages of Willoughby and Chancellor to the White Sea, with some 

account of the earliest intercourse between England and Russia, 

Reprinted from Hakluyt's Voyages, with Notes and Introduction by 
, E. Delmar Morgan. 
Dr. John Fryer's New Account of East India and Persia (1698). Edited by 

Arthur T. Pringle. 
The Expedition of Hernan Cortes to Honduras in 1525-26. Second Edition 

(see No. 40), with added matter. Translated and Edited by A. P. 

Maudslay. 
The Letters of Pietro Delia Valle from Persia, &c. Translated and Edited by 

Major M. Nathan, C.M.G., R.E. 
The Journey of Pedro Teixeira from India to Italy by land, 1604-05 ; with his 

Chronicle of the Kings of Ormus. Translated and Edited by W. F. 

Sinclair, late I.C.S. 
The First English Voyage to Japan, 1611-14. Edited by H. E. Sir Ernest 

M. Satow, K.CM.G. 



12 



LAWS OF THE HAKLTHTT SOCIETY. 



I. The object of this Society shall be to print, for distribution among its 
members, rare and valuable Voyages, Travels, Naval Expeditions, and other 
geographical records, from an early period to the beginning of the eighteenth 
century. 

II. The Annual Subscription shall be One Guinea (for America, five dollars, 
U.S. currency), payable in advance on the ist January. 

III. Each member of the Society, having paid his Subscription, shall be 
entitled to a copy of every work produced by the Society, and to vote at the 
general meetings within the period subscribed for ; and if he do not signify, 
before the close of the year, his wish to resign, he shall be considered as a member 
for the succeeding year. 

IV. The management of the Society's affairs shall be vested in a Council 
consisting of twenty-two members, viz., a President, two Vice-Presidents, a 
Treasurer, a Secretary, and seventeen ordinary members, to be elected annually ; 
but vacancies occurring between the general meetings shall be filled up by the 
Council. 

V. A General Meeting of the Subscribers shall be held annually. The 
Secretary's Report on the condition and proceedings of the Society shall be 
then read, and the meeting shall proceed to elect the Council for the ensuing year. 

VI. At each Annual Election, three of the old Council shall retire. 

VII. The Council shall meet when necessary for the dispatch of business, three 
forming a quorum, including the Secretary; the Chairman having a casting vote. 

VIII. Gentlemen preparing and editing works for the Society, shall receive 
twenty-five copies of such works respectively. 



LIST OF MEMBERS. 



1900. 

Aberdare, The Right Hon. Lord, Longwood, Winchester. 

Adelaide Public Library, per Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner & Co. 

Admiralty, The (2 copies), per Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 

Advocates' Library, Edinburgh, per Mr. Eccles, 96, Great Russell-street. 

Alexander, W. L., Esq., Pinkieburu, Musselburgh, N.B. 

All Souls College, Oxford. 

American Geographical Society, 11, West 29th- street. New York City, U.S.A. 

Amherst, of Hackney, The Right Hon. Lord, Didlington Hall, Brandon 

Norfolk. 
Antiga Casa Bertrand, Jose Bastos, 7-^, Rua Garrett, Lisbon. 
Antiquaries, the Society of, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W. 
Army and Navy Club, 36, Pall-mall. 
Athenaeum Club, Pall Mall. 

Baer, Joseph & Co., Messrs., per Messrs. Epstein, 47, Holborn Viaduct, E.G. 

Bain, Mr., 1, Haymarket, S.W. 

Ball, John B., Esq., Ashburton Cottage, Putney Heath, S.W. 

Barclay, Hugh G., Esq., Colney Hall, Norwich. 

Barlow, R. Fred., Esq., 71, Mai-ine Parade, Worthing, Sussex. 

Basano, Marquis de, per Messrs. Hatchard, Piccadilly W. 

Basset, M. Rene, Correspondant de I'lnstitut de France, Directenr de I'Ecole 

sup^rieure des lettres d' Alger, L'Agha 77, rue Michelet, Alger- Mustapha. 
Baxter, James Phinney, Esq., 61, Deering-street, Portland, Maine, U.S.A. 
Beaumont, Rear- Admiral L. A., 3, Sloane-gardens, S.W. 
Beazley, C. Raymond, Esq., 13, The Paragon, Blackheath, S.E. 
Belhaven and Stenton, Col. the Lord, R.E., 41, Lennox-gardens, S.W. 
Berlin Geogi-aphical Society, per Messrs. Sampson Low. 
Berlin, the Royal Library of, per Messrn. Asher and Co. 
Berlin University, Geographical Institute of (Baron von Richthofen), 6 

Schinkelplatz, Berlin, W., per Messrs. Sampson Low. 
Birch, Dr. W. de G., British Museum. 

Birmingham Central Free Library, Ratcliflf-place, Birmingham. 
Birmingham Old Library (The), Birmingham. 
Bodleian Library, Oxford (copies presented J. 
Bonaparte, H. H. Prince Roland, 10, Avenue d'J^na, Paris. 
Boston Athenaeum Library, U.S.A., per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
Boston Public Library, per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, U.S.A., per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
Bower, Major Hamilton, per Messrs. Grindlay & Co., 54, Parliament Street. : 
Bowring, Thos. B., Esq., 7, Palace Gate, Kensington, W. 
Brewster, Charles 0., Esq., University Club, New York City, U.S.A. 
Brighton Public Library. 
Brine, Vice- Admiral Lindesay. 

British Guiana Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society, Georgetown 
British Museum (copies presented). [Demerara* 

Brock, Robert C. H., Esq., 1612, Walnut-street, Philadelphia. 
Brodrick, Hon. G., Merton College, Oxford. 
Brooke, Thos., Esq., Armitage Bridge, Huddersfield. 
Brookline Public Library, Mass., U.S.A. 
Brooklyn Mercantile Library, per Mr. E. G. Allen. 
Brown, Arthur W. W., Esq., 37, Evelyn Mansions, Carlisle-place, Victoria- 

street, S.W. 
Brown, General J. Marshall, 218, Middle-street, Portland, Maine, U.S A 



14 

Brown, H. T., Esq., Roodeye House, Chester. 

Brown, J. Allen, Esq., J.P., 7, Kent-gardens, Ealing. 

Brown, J. Nicholas, Esq., per Messrs. Ellis & Elvey, 29, New Bond-st., W. 

Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island (H. L. Koopman, Librarian). 

Buda-Pesth, the Geographical Institute of the University of. 

Bunting, W. L. Esq., The Steps, Bromsgrove. 

Burgess, Jas., Esq., CLE., LL.D., 22, Seton-piace, Edinburgh. 

Burns, J. W., Esq., Kilmahew, Dumbartonshire. 

Buxton, E. North, Esq., Knighton, Buckhurst-hill. 

Cambridge University Library, per Mr. Eccles. 

Canada, The Parliament Library, per Mr. E. G. Allen. 

Cardiff" Public Library, Cardiff (J. Balliuger, Esq., Librarian). 

Carles, W. R.. Esq., British Consulate, Tientsin, China. 

Carlton Club, Pall-mall. 

Carlisle, The Rt. Hon. the Earl of, Naworth Castle. Bampton, Cumberland. 

Carnegie Library, Pittsburgh, U.S.A., per Mr. Stechert. 

Cawston, Geo., Esq., Warnford Court, Throgmorton -street, E.C. 

Chamberlain, Right Hon. Joseph, M.P., 40, Princes-gardens, S.W. 

Chetham's Library, Hunt's Bank, Manchester. 

Chicago Public Library, per Messrs. Stevens and Brown. 

Christ Church, Oxford 

Christiania University Library, c/o Messrs. T. Bennett and Sons, Christiania, 

per Messrs. Casselland Co., Ludgate Hill. 
Church, Col. G. Isarl. 216, Cromwell-road, S.W. 
Cincinnati Public Library, Ohio, LLS.A. 

Clark, J. W., Esq., Scroope House, Trumpington-street, Cambridge. 
Colgau, Nathaniel, Esq., 1, Belgrave-road, Rathmines, Dublin. 
Colonial Office (The), Downing-street, S.W. 
Constable, Archibald, Esq., India. 

Conway, Sir W. Martin, The Red House, Horn ton -street, W. 
Cooper, Lieut.-Col. E. H., 42, Portman-square, W. 
Copenhagen Royal Library, c/o Messi^. Lehman and Stage, Copenhagen, per 

Messrs. Sampson Low. 
Cora, Professor Guido, M.A., Via Goito, 2, Rome. 
Cornell University, per Mr. E. G. Allen. 
Corning, C. R., Esq.j^^^^^^^^^^ Switzerland. 

Cormng, H. K., Esq. j ' ' 

Cortissoz, Royal, Esq., Editorial Room, Neia York THhune, New York, 

U.S.A. 
Cow, J., Esq., Elfinsward, Hayward's Heath. 
Cruising Club, The, 40, Chancery Lane, W.C. 

Cunningham, Lieut.-Col. G., Junior U.S. Club, Charles- street, S.W. 
Curzon of Kedleston, Right Hon. Lord, Carlton -gardens, S.W. 

Dalton. Rev. Canon J. N., M.A., C.M.G., The Cloisters, Windsor. 

Danish Royal Naval Library, per Messrs. Sampson Low (Foreign Dept.). 

Davis, Hon. N. Darnell, C.M.G., Georgetown, Demerara, British Guiana. 

De Bertodano, B., Esq., 22, Chester-terrace, Regent's-park, N.W. 

Derby, The Earl of, c/o the Rev. J. Richardson, Knowsley, Prescot. 

Detroit Public Library, Michigan, U.S.A. 

Dijon University Library, Rue Monge, Dijon. 

Dorpat University, per Herr Koehler, 21, Taubchenweg, Leipzig. 

Doubleday, H. Arthur, Esq., 2, Whitehall-gardens, S.W. 

Dresden Geographical Society, per Herr P. E. Richter, Kleine Briidergasse, 

11, Dresden. 
Droutskoy Lubetsky, S.A.S. le Prince, Kovensky per. 2, St. Petersburg. 
Ducie, The Right Hon. Earl, F.R.S., Tortworth Court, Falfield. 



15 

Eames, Wilberforce,E8q., Lenox Library, 890, Fifth avenue, New York, U.S.A., 

per Mr. B. F. Stevens. 
Edinburgh Public Library. 

Edwards, Francis, Esq., 83, High-street, Marylebone, W. 
Ellsworth, James \V., Esq., 2, West 16th Street, New York, U.S.A. 
Elton, Charles I., Esq., Q.C., F.S.A., 10, Cranley-place, Onslow-square, S.W. 

Faber, Regmald S , Esq., 90, Regent's Park-road, N.W. 

Fanshawe, Admiral Sir Edw., G.C.B., 74, Cromwell-road, S.W. 

Fellows Athenaeum, per Messrs. Kegan Paul, Trench, Triibner, & Co. 

Ferguson, D. W., Esq., 5, Bedford -place, Croydon. 

Field, W. Hildreth, Esq., 923, Madison-avenue, New York City, U.S.A. 

Fisher, Arthur, Esq., St. Aubyn's, Tiverton, Devon. 

Fitzgerald, Edward A., Esq., per Mr. Jas. Bain, 1, Haymarket, S.W. 

Foreign Office (The), per Messrs. Eyre and Spottiswoode. 

Foreign Office of Germany, Berlin, per Messrs. Asher and Co. 

Forrest, G. W., Esq., C.I.E., Savile Club, 107, Piccadilly, W. 

Foster, William, Esq., India Office, S.W. 

Fothergill, M. B., Esq., c/o Imperial Bank of Persia, 25, Abchurch-lane, E.C. 

French, H. B., Esq., 429, Arch Street, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 

Georg, Mons. H., Lyons, per Messrs. Sampson Low. 

George, C. W., Esq., 51, Hampton-road, Bristol. 

Gladstone Library, National Liberal Club, Whitehall-place, S.W. 

Glasgow University Library, per Mr. Billings, 59, Old Bailey, E. C. 

Godman, F. Ducane, Esq., D.C.L., F.R.S., 10, Cliandos-street, Cavendish- 
square, W. 

Goach, C. A., Esq., 21, Stanhope-gardens, S.W. 

GU>8set, General M. W. E., C.B., Island Bridge House, Dublin. 

Gottingen University Library, per Messrs. Asher and Co. 

Grant-Dufif, Rt. Hon. Sir M. E.,G.C.S.I., 11, Chelsea Embankment, S.W. 

Gray, Albert, Esq., Catherine Lodge. Trafalgar Square, Chelsea, S.W. 

Gray, M. H., Esq., India-rubber Company, Silvertown, Essex. 

Greever, C. 0., Esq., 1345, East Ninth-street. Des Moines, Iowa. 

Grosvenor Library, Bufifalo, U.S.A. 

Guildhall Library, E.C. 

Guillemard, Arthur G., Esq., Eltham, Kent. 

Guillemard, F. Henry H., Esq., M. A., M.D., The Old Mill House, Trumpington, 
Cambridge. 

Haig, Maj. -General Malcolm R., Rossweide, Davos Platz, Switzerland. 
Hamburg Commerz-Bibliothek, c/o Herrn Friederichsen and Co., Hamburg, 

per Messrs. Drolenvaux and Bremner, 36, Gt. Tower-street, E.C. 
Hannen, The Hon. H., Holne Cott, Ashburton, South Devon. 
Harmsworth, A. C, Esq., Elmwood, St. Peter's, Kent. 
Harrison, Edwin, Esq., Church Gates, Cheshunt. 
Harvard College, Cambridge, Massachusetts, per Messrs. Kogan Paul. 
Harvie-Brown, J. A., Esq., Donipace, Larbert, Stirlingshire, N.B. 
Haswell, Geo. H., Esq., Ashleigh, Hamstead Road, Handsworth, Birmingham. 
Hawkesbury, The Rt. Hon. Lord, 2, Carlton House-terrace, S.W. 
Heap, Ralph, Esq., 1, Brick-court, Temple, E.C. 

Heawood, Edward, Esq., M.A., F.R.G.S., 3, Underhill-road, Lordship-lane, S.E. 
Hervey, Dudley F. A., Esq., C.M.G., The Elms, Aldeburgh. 
Hiersemann, Herr Karl W., 3, Koixjgsstrasse, Leipzig, per Mr. Young T. 

Pentland, 38, West Smithfield, ^.C. 
Hill, Professor G. W., West Nyack, New York. 

Hippisley, A. E., Esq., c/o J. D. Campbell, Esq., C.M.G., 26, Old Queen-st., S.W. 
Hobhouse, C. E. H., Esq., The Ridge, Corsham, Wilts. 
Horner, J. F. Fortescue, Esq., Metis Park, Frome, Somersetshire, per 

Mr. J. Bain. 



\6 

Hoskins, Admiral Sir Anthony H., G.C.B., 17, Montagu-square, TV. 
Hoyt Public Library, per Messrs. Sotheran and Co., 140, Strand. 
Hubbard, Hon. Gardiner G., 1328, Connecticut-avenue, Washington, D.C. 
Hudson, John E., Esq., 125, Milk-street, Boston, Mass., U.S.A. 
Hull Public Library (W. F. Lawton, Esq., Librarian). 
Hull Subscription Library, per Messrs. Foster, Fore-street. 

Im Thurn, E. F., Esq., C.B., C.M.G., 23, Edwardes-square, Kensington, W. 

India Office (21 copies). 

Inner Temple, Hon. Society of the (J. E. L. Pickering, Esq., Librarian). 

Jackson, Major H.M., R.E., 3, Ravelston Place, Edinburgh. 

James, Arthur C, Esq., 92, Park-avenue, New York, U.S.A. 

James, Walter B., Esq., M.D., 268, Madison-avenue, New York. 

Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, U.S.A., per Mr. E. Q. Allen. 

Johnson, General Sir Allen B., 60, Lexham-gardens, Cromwell-road, S.W. 

Johnson, Rev. S. J., F.R.A.S., Melplash Vicarage, Bridport. 

Jones and Evans, Messrs., 77, Queen-street, Cheapside, E.G. 

Kearton, G. J. Malcolm, Esq., F.R.G.S., 28, Fenchurch Street, E.G. 

Keltic, J. Scott, Esq., LL.D., 1, Savile-row, W. 

Kelvin, The Rt. Hon. Lord, F.R.S., LL.D., Netherhall, Largs, Ayrshire. 

Key, John J., Esq., Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S.A. 

Kinder, C. W., Esq., M.I.C.E., Tongshan, North China. 

King's Inns Library, Henrietta-street, Dublin. 

Kimberley Public Library, per Messrs. Sotheran and Co., Strand. 

Kitching, J., Esq. , Oaklands, Kingston Hill, S.W. 

Kleinseich, M., per Mr. Wohlleben, 45, Gt. Russell -street, W. C. (3 copies). 

Larchmont Yacht Club, Larchmont, N.Y., U.S.A. (F. D. Shaw, Esq., 

Chairman of Library Committee). 
Leechman, C. B., Esq., 10, Earl's-court-gardens, S.W. 
Leeds Library, Commercial- street, Leeds. 
Lehigh University, U.S.A. 

Leipzig, Library of the University of, per Herr 0. Harrassowitz, Leipzig. 
Lewis, Walter H., Esq., 11, East 35th-street, New York City, U.S.A. 
Levy, Judah, Esq., 17, Greville-place, N.W. 
Liverpool Free Public Library. 
Liverpool Geographical Society (Capt. D. Phillips, R.N., Secretary), 14, 

Hargreaves-buildings, Chapel-street, Liverpool. 
Loch, Right Hon. Lord, G.C.B., G.C.M.G., 23, Lowndes-square, S.W. 
Loescher, Messrs. J., & Co., Via del Corso, 307, Rome, per Messrs. Sampson 

Low. 
Logan, Daniel, Esq., Solicitor- General, Penang, Straits Settlements. 
Logan, William, Esq., per Messrs. Grindlay & Co., 54, Parliament-street. 
London Institution, Finsbury-circus. 
London Library, 12, St. James's-square. 
Long Island Historical Society, Brooklyn, U.S.A. 
Lowrey, Joseph, Esq., The Hermitage, Lough ton. 
Lucas, C. P., Esq., Colonial Office, S.W. 

Lucas, F. W., Esq., 21, Surrey-street, Victoria Embankment, W.C. 
Luyster, S. B., Esq., c/o Messrs. Denham & Co., 27, Bloomsbury-square, W.C. 
Lydenberg, H. M. , Esq., Lenox Library, Fifth Avenue, New York. 
Lyttelton-Annesley, Lieut. -Gen. A., Templemere, Weybridge. 

Macmillan & Bowes, Messrs., Cambridge, per Messrs. Foster, Fore-street. 

Macrae, C. C, Esq., 93, Onslow-gardens, S.W. 

Manchester Public Free Libraries. 

Manierre, George, Esq., 184, La Salle-street, ( hicago, III., U.S.A. 



Margesson, Lieut. W. H. D., R.N.. Fiudon Place. Worthing. 

Markham, Vice-Admiral Albert H., F.R.G.S., 65, Liudeii- gardens, W. 

Markhami Sir Clemeuts, K.C.B., F.R.S., 21, Eccleston-square, S.W. 

Marquand, Henry, Esq., 160, Broadway, New York, U.S.A. 

Martelli, E. W., Esq., 4, New Square, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 

Massachusetts Historical Society, 30, Tremont- street, Boston, Mass., U.S.A., 

per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
Massie, Capt. R. H., R.A. 

Mathers, E. P., Esq., Glenalmond, Foxgrove-road, Beckenham. 
Maudslay, A. P., Esq., 32, Montpelier-square, Knightsbridge, S.W. 
McClymont, Jas. R., Esq., 201, Macquarie-street. Hobart Town, Tasmania. 
Mecredy, Jas., Esq., M.A., B.L., F.R.G.S., Wynberg, Stradbrook, Blackrock, 

Dublin Co. 
Melbourne, Public Library of, per Messrs. Melville, Mullen & Slade, 12, 

Ludgate-square, E.G. 
Meyjes, A. C., Esq., 42, Cannon-street, E.G. 

Michigan, University of, per Messrs. H. Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand, W.C. 
Milwaukee Public Library, Wisconsin, per Mr. G. E. Stechert. 
Minneapolis Athenaeum, IJ.S.A., per Mr. G. E. Stechert, 2, Star-yard, W.C. 
Mitchell Library, 21, Miller-street, Glasgow. 

Mitchell, Alfred, Esq., per Messrs. Tift'any, 221, Regent-street, W. 
Mitchell, Wm., Esq., 14^ Forbesfield-road, Aberdeen. 
Monson, The Rt. Hon. Lord, C. V.O., Clarence House, St. James's, S.W. 
Morgan, E. Delmar, Esq., 15, Roland-gardens, South Kensington, S.W. 
Morris, H. C. L., Esq., M.D., Gothic Cottage, Bognor, Sussex. 
Morris, Mowbray, Esq., 59a, Brook street, Grosvenor square, W. 
Moxon, A. E., Esq., c/o Mrs. Gough, The Lodge, Sculdern, near Banbury. 
Mukhopadhyay, The Hon. Dr. Asutosh, M.A., LL.D.,etc.,etc., 77, Russa-road 

North, Bhowanipore, Calcutta. 
Munich Royal Library, per Messrs. Asher & Co. 

Nathan, Major, C.M.G., R.E., 11, Pembridge-square, W. 

Natural History Museum^ Cromwell-road, per Messrs. Dulau & Co., Soho-sq. 

Naval and Military Club, 94, Piccadilly, W. 

Netherlands, Geographical Society of the, per Mr. Nutt, 57, Long Acre. 

Nettleship, E^, Esq., c/o R. S.. Whiteway, Esq., Browiisconjbe, Shottermill, 
Surrey. ^ - 

Newberry Libl-ary^-Tfie, Chicago, U.S.A., per Messrs. Stevens & Brown. 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Literary and Scientific Institute. 

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Public Library. 

New London Public Library, Conn., U.S.A. 

New York Athletic Club, Central Park, South, New York (John C. Gulick, 
Esq., chairman of Library Committee). 

New York Public Library, per Messrs. Stevens & Brown. 

New York State Library, per Mr. G. E. Stechert, 2, Star-yard, Carey-st., W.C. 

New York Yacht Club (Library Committee), 67, Madison-avenue, New York 
City, U.S.A. 

New Zealand, Agent-General for, per Messrs. Sotheran & Co. 

Nicholson, Sir Charles, Bart., D.C.L., The Grange, Totteridge, Herts. 

Nijhoff, M., per Mr. D. Nutt, 57, Long Acre, W.C. 

Nordenskiold, Baron, 11, Tradgardsgatan, Stockholm. 

North Adams Public Library, Massachusetts, U.S.A. [Station. 

Northbrook, The Right Hon. the EarV of, G.C.S.I., Stratton, Micheldever 

North, Hon. F. H., C 3, The Albany, W. 

Northumberland, His Grace the Duke of, per Mr. Cross, 230, Caledonian- 
road, N. 

O'Byme, P. Justin, Esq.. "British-Indian Commerce," 21, St.Helen's-place,E.C. 

Oliver, Captain S. P., Findon, near Worthing. 

Oliver, Commander T. W., R.N., 16, De Parys-avenue, Bedford. 



i8 

Omaha Public Library, Nebraska, U.S.A. 

Ommanney, Admiral Sir Erasmus, C.B., F.R.S.,29,Connaught-sq., Hyde Park. 

Oriental Club, Hanover-square, W. 

Parmly, Duncan D. , Esq., 160, Broadway, New York-. 

Payne, E. J., Esq., 2, Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, W.C. 

Peabody Institute, Baltimore, U.S., per Mr. E. G. Allen. 

Peckover, Alexander, Esq., Bank House, Wisbech. 

Peech, W. H., Esq., St. Stephen's Club, Westminster. 

Peek, Sir Cuthbert E., Bart., 22, Belgrave- square, S.W. 

Peixoto, Dr. J. Rodrigues, 8, Rue Almte. Comandar^, Rio de Janeiro. 

Pequot Library, Southport, Conn., U.S.A. 

Petherick, E. A., Esq., 85, Ilopton-road, Streatham, S.W. 

Philadelphia Free Library, U.S.A., per Mr. G. E. Stechert, 2, Star-yard, W.C. 

Philadelphia, Library Company of, U.S.A., per Mr. E. G. Allen. 

Poor, F. B., Esq., 160, Broadway, New York, U.S.A. 

Poor, Henry W., Esq., per Messrs. Denham & Co., 27, Bloomsbury-square. 

Pope, Alexander, Esq., Methven House, Kiug's-road, Kingston-on-Thames. 

Portico Library, Manchester. 

Pringle, Arthur T., Esq., c/o Messrs. G. W. Wheatley &Co., 10, Queen-st., E.C. 

Quaritch, Mr. B., 15, Piccadilly, W. (12 copies). 

Rabbits, W. Thos., Esq., 6, Cadogan Gardens, S.W. 

Raffles Library, Singapore, i)er Messrs. Jones & Evans, Queen-street, E.C. 

Ravenstein, E. G., Esq.. 2, York Mansions, Battersea Park, S.W. 

Reform Club, Pall-malL 

Reggio, Andre C, Esq., c/o Messrs. Baring Bros. &; Co., 8, Bishopsgate- street 

Within, E.C. 
Rhodes, Josiah, Esq., The Elms, Lytham, Lancashire. 
Richards, Admiral Sir F. W., G.C.B., 34, Queen Anne's Gate, S.W. 
Riggs, E. F., Esq., 1311, Mass, Avenue, Washington, U.S. 
Ringw-dt, John S., Juu., Esq., Mt. Vernon, Knox County, Ohio, U.S.A. 
Rittenhouse Club, 1811, Walnut-street, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 
Rockhill, The Hon. W. W., Department of State, Washington. 
Rodd, Sir Rennell, C.B., K.C.M.G., c/o Foreign Office, Downing-street, S.W. 
Rohrscheid and Ebbecke, Herru, Strauss'sche Buchhaudlung, Bonn. 
Rose, C. D., Esq., 10, Austin Friars, E.C 
Royal Artillery Institute, Woolwich. 
Royal Colonial Institute, Northumberland Avenue, W.C. 
Royal Engineers' Institute, Chatham. 

Royal Geographical Society, 1, Savile-row, W. {copies presented). 
Royal Scottish Geographical Society, Edinburgh (Jas. Burgess. Esq., LL.D., 

CLE., Librarian). 
Royal Societies Club, St. James's -street, S.W. 
Royal United Service Institution, Whitehall, S.W. 
Russell, Lady A., 2, Audley-square, W. 
Rutherford, Rev. W. Gunion, D.D., Westminster School, S.W. 

Ryley! Mr^''Floren^e?LL.A., {^^^''^^^ Woodwarde-road, Dalwich, S.E. 

San Francisco Public Library, per Mr. G. E. Stechert. 
Satow, H. E. Sir E., K.C.M.G., 104, The Common, Upper Clapton, E. 
Saunders, Howard, Esq., 7, Radnor-place, Gloucester- square, W. 
Saxk-Cobuug and Gotha, H.R.H. the Reigning Duke of (Duke of Edinburgh) 

K.G., K.T., etc., c/o Col. the Hon. Sir W. J. Colville, K.C.V.O., Clarence 

House, St. James's. 
Schwartz, J. L., Esq., P.O. Box 594, Pittsburg, Pa. 



19 

ScieDce and Art Department, South Kensington. 

Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club, 7, East 32nd-street. New York, U.S.A. 

Seymour, Vice- Admiral Sir E. H., K.C.B., 9, Ovingtou-equare, S.W. 

Sheffield Free Public Libraries (Samuel Smith, Esq., Librarian). 

Shields, Cuthbert, Esq., Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 

Signet Library, Edinburgh (Thos. G. Law, Esq., Librarian), per Mr. D. Nutt. 

Silver, S. W., Esq., 3, York-gate, Regent's Pai k, N.W. 

Sinclair, W. F., Esq., c/o Messrs. H. S. King & Co., Pall Mall, S.W. 

Smith, F. A., Esq., Thorncliff, Shoot-up-Hill, N. 

Smithers, F.O., Esq., F.R.G.S., Dashwood House, 9, New Broad-street, E.C. 

Sneddon, Geo. T., Esq., 8, Merry-street, Motherwell. 

Societd Geografica Italiana, Rome. 

Soci^b^ de Geographic, Paris, per Mr. J. Arnould, Royal Mint Refinery, Royal 

Mint-street, E.C. 
South African Public Library. })er Messrs H. S. King & Co., 65, Cornhill, 

E.C. 
Southam, S. Clement, Esq., F.S.A., F.R.G.S., F.RHist.S., F.R.S.L., 

Elmhurst, Shrewsbury. 
Springfield City Library Association, Mass., U.S.A. 

Stairs, Jaraes W., Esq., c/o Messrs. Stairs, Son and Morrow, Halifax, Nova Scotia. 
Stanley, Right Hon. Lord, of Alderley, 15, Grosvenor-gardens, S.W. 
St. Andrew's University. 

St. John's, N. B., Canada, Free Public Library (J. R. Ruel, Esq., Chairman). 
St. Louis Mercantile Library, per Mr. G. E. Stechert, 2, Star-yard, W.C. 
St. Martin 's-in -the- Fields Free Public Library, 115, St. Martin's-lane, W.C. 
St. Petersburg University Library, per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
St. Wladimir University, Kief, per Messrs. Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand. 
Stejjhens, Henry C, Esq., M.P., Avenue House, Finchley, N. 
Stevens, J.Tyler, Esq., Park-street, Lowell, Mass., U.S.A. 
Stevens, Son, & Stiles, Messrs.. 39,, Great Russell-street, W.C. 
Stockholm, Royal Library of, per Messrs Sampson Low. 
Stockton Public Library, per Messrs. Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand. 
Strachey, Lady, 69, Lancaster-gate, Hyde- park, W. 
Stride, Mrs. Arthur L., Bush Hall, Hatfield, Herts. 
Stringer, G. A., Esq,, 248, Georgia-street, Buffalo, N.Y., U.S.A. 
Stubbs, Captain Edward, R.N., 13, Greenfield-road. Stoueycroft, Liverpool. 
Sydney Free Library, per Mr. Young J. Pentland, 38, West Smithfield, E.C. 
Sykes, Major P. Molesworth, H.M.s Consul at Kermau, Persia, via Tehran. 

Tate, G. P., Esq., c/o Messrs. W. Watson & Co., Karachi, India. 

Taylor, Captain William R., 1, Daysbrook-road, Streatham Hill, S.W. 

Temple, Lieut.-Col. R. C, C.I.E., per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 

Thin, Mr. Jas , 54, 55, South Bridge, Edinburgh, per Mr. Billings. 59, Old 

Bailey, E.C. 
Thomson, B. H., Esq., Governor's House, H.M.'s Prison, Northampton. 
Tighe, W. S., Coalmoney, Stratford-on-Slauey, Co. Wicklow. 
Toronto Public Library. 1 t*, ^ „ c. 

Toronto University. |per Messrs. Cazenove & Son. 

Transvaal State Library, Pretoria, Transvaal, South Africa, per Messrs. Mudie. 

Travellers' Club, 106, Pall-mall, S.W. 

Trinder, H. W., Esq., Northbrook House, Bishops Waltham, Hants. 

Trinder, Oliver Jones, Esq., Mount Vernon, Caterham, Surrey. 

Trinity College, Cambridge, care of Messrs. Deighton, Bell & Co., per Messrs. 

Sirapkiu, Marshall & Co. (Enclo. Dept.). 
Trinity House, The Hon. Corporation of. Tower-hill, E.C. 
Troop, W. H., Esq., c/o Messrs. Black Bros. & Co., Halifax, Nova Scotia. 
Trotter, Coutts, Esq., Athenaeum Club, S.W 
Triibner, Herr Karl, Strasburg, per Messrs Kegan Paul. 
Turnbull, Alex. H., Esq., 7, St. Helen's -place, Bishopsgate-street, E.C. 



I 



20 



Union League House, Broad-street, Philadelphia, U.S.A. 

Union Society, Oxfoid, per Messrs. Cawthorn & Hutt, 24, Cockspur-street. 

United States Congress, Library of, per Mr. E. G. Allen. 

United States National Museum (Library of), per Messrs. W. Wesley & Son, 

28, Essex- street, W.C. 
United States Naval Academy, per Messrs. Stevens & Brown. 
University of London, per Messrs. Sotheran & Co., 37, Piccadilly, W. 
Upsala University Library, per C. J. Lundstrom, Upsala. 

Van Raalte, Charles, Esq., Aldenham Abbey, Watford, Herts. 

Vienna Imperial Library, per Messrs. Asher & Co. 

Vignaud. Henry, Esq., Ambassade des Etats Unis, 18, Avenue Klleber, Paris. 

Wahab, Mrs., Knovvle, Godalming. 

Ward, Admiral Hon. W. J., 79, Davies-street, Berkeley-square, W. 

Warren, W. R., Esq., 81, Fulton-street, New York City, U.S.A. 

Washington, Department of State, per Messrs. Stevens & Brown. 

Washington, Library of Navy De[)artment, per Messrs. Stevens & iJrown. 

Watkinson Library, Hartford, Coimecticut, U.S.A. 

Watson, Commander, K.N.R., Ravella, Crosby, near Liverpool. 

Webster, Sir Augustus, Bart., Guards' Club, 70, Pall-mall. 

Weld, Geo. F., Esq., Quincy-street, Cambridge, Mass., U.S.A. 

Westminster School (Rev. G. H. Nail, M.A., Librarian). 

Wharton, Rear- Admiral SirW. J. L., K.C.B., Florys, Princes-road, Wimbledon 

Park, S.W. 
Wildy, A.G., Esq., 14, Buckingham-street, W.C. 
Williams, 0. W., Esq., Fort Stockton, Texas, U.S.A. 
Wilson, Edward S., Esq., Melton Grange, Brough, East Yorkshii-e. 
Wisconsin State Historical Society, per Messrs. Sotheran & Co., 140, Strand. 
Worcester, Massachusetts, Free Library, per Messrs. Kegan Paul. 
Wright, John, Esq., 2, Challoner Terrace West, South Shields. 
Wyndhan:, Geo., Esti-. M.P., 35, Park Lane, W. 



Yale College, U.S.A., per Mr. E. G. Allen. 

Young, Alfales, Esq., Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A. 

Young, Sir Allen, C.B., 18, Grafton-street, W. 

Young & Sons, Messrs. H,, 12, South Castle Street, Liverpool. 

Ziirich, Biblioth6que de la Ville, care of Messrs. Orell, Turli & Co., Ziirich, per 
Mr. D. Nutt. 



1 



I. 



s 



^ 






f